Pinnacle Wraith
by Thuggery
Summary: They thought that Ontiveros's death stopped the uprising, nipping it at its bud. They were wrong. Now a nuclear warhead has gone missing, and Central America is ablaze with the flames of revolution.
1. Prologue

_Panama Canal Gatun Locks, Panama_

_25 June 2014_

The eight-man team was wet, cold, and miserable, not that you would hear a complaint from them. They had a job to do here, and nothing short of death would stop the men of 1 Batt, 5th SFG, the "Ghosts". All eight of them were dressed in damp Multi-Cam fatigues and carrying approximately seventeen thousand dollars of waterproofed electronics between them. None of which helped insulate against the wind coming off of the water or their swim up-canal.

They had found a spot in the Gatun lock chamber in its emergency dam system where they had an excellent view of the waters below. Ever since their retirement nearly thirty years ago, there had been a gap underneath the walkways. It was here that they had set up camp while awaiting their target. Schedules they had pilfered from the Canal Authority offices gave them only a few more minutes of waiting.

Lieutenant Orlando Contadino crept amongst his men, patting shoulders as a final sign of reassurance before they were on-mission. His rubber-soled jungle boots made barely a sound as he moved on the rough droppings-coated concrete of the old emergency dam's alcove. The men were all seasoned operators, many of them with long stints with the Rangers and Green Berets before being selected for the Ghosts. They didn't _need_ his reassurance, but it was something of a good luck charm for them. Just another layer of security on top of the live satellite feeds that they had access to as well as all of the intel they and the tech-heads in the Puzzle Palace had scrounged up.

"Systems check," he said as he crept to the edge of the alcove to look down at the water, pulling his data monocle down over his right eye.

The rest of the team started up their own monocles, which were wired to a pair of netbook-sized computers. These were in turn in direct communication with a number of Pentagon servers. Combined with the network of sensors spread throughout their fatigues and body armor, the Integrated Warfighter System provided the unit's commanders with a constantly-updating view of their troops physical condition as well as mission status. The Ghosts would receive in turn live feeds from government satellites and their fellow operators.

All of these systems were in turn powered by a canteen-sized microturbine, whose components were built from a lattice of reinforced silicon that maximized its power-to-fuel ratio so that it practically sipped whatever fuel they had been supplied to provide enough power to run the System. Their issued synthetic p-carb was best, but they had used anything and everything ranging from seventy-proof alcohol to jet fuel with little ill effect.

Systems were lighting up green across the board. Contadino saw the rest of his team in the darkness being represented by seven blue diamond markers superimposed by his monocle. They were all making final preparations, checking each others' equipment and weaponry. Command had issued them suppressed Heckler & Koch MP7s for the operation. Reliable equipment, they had been cleaned and dried after the trek up the canal. With any luck the Ghosts would not need to even brandish them.

"Ghost Lead?" Contadino heard from behind him. The voice played out in stereo from both its speaker Master Sergeant Mack Blane as well as from the earpiece. "Your turn."

He stood up and allowed his executive officer to check his backpack before returning the favor. They were traveling light, but it never hurt to be sure before initiating contact. Blane's equipment was in working order and the lieutenant told him so. They were all check out with each other with three minutes until their target arrived. Time to report in.

"Baseplate, Baseplate, this is Ghost Lead," he said, switching over to the secure command frequency. "Romeo Team is ready. Three minutes until package arrival."

"Ghost Lead, Baseplate," the response came. "We read on confirmation. You are cleared hot. Crew to be considered expendable."

There were days where he wondered if some Chair Force policy officers had snuck into the Ghosts' command staff. He was _not_ passing down that order.

He gestured to the rest of the team to clear and check their firearms. Unfired, their suppressed MP7s and HK45s only had to be brass-checked. Contadino pulled the charging handle half-way back on his submachine gun to make sure there was a round chambered. Then he performed the same process with his suppressed pistol, pulling the slide back enough to check that were was a round chambered as well. Four M84 flashbangs clipped to his vest completed his sparse loadout. Setting his MP7 to single shots, he looked at the rest of the assembled team.

"Rules of engagement," he stated. "If they're armed, weapons free. If they're _not_ armed, subdue. But only if they haven't seen you. Otherwise, take them down as well. Don't take chances. We were never here."

"Lead, what if they're reaching for a weapon?" Sergeant First Class Eric Slade asked. "We're cleared for that?"

"If they're reaching for a weapon, they're armed, Ghosts," Blane said from his position keeping an eye out at the water. "Your heard Ghost Lead. Take no chances with your own safety. If you see them going for a weapon, or you think they've got a weapon, take them. Otherwise try to incapacitate without their noticing."

"Just wondering," Slade said with a shrug.

They were professionals. This was just another pre-mission ritual of sorts. Contadino flicked through his men's vitals on his monocle. They had previously been using the Cross-Com, something so netrocentric and hyperwar that even their commanders didn't know what "Cross-Com" stood for. It wasn't in their operating manuals either.

The previous year's Mexican insurrection had made the papers, particularly with the research teams who were responsible for maintaining and upgrading their technological edge against whoever they might encounter. Subsequently with the work of Alpha and Bravo teams, their IWS equipment had been recalled for upgrades that they had requested. That meant that they had been sent into the field with their older equipment. No live video feed from everyone else in the team, but it was a robust and tested system.

Two minutes. The team had already gathered their ropes and were all ready. It was a simple job and they all remembered their roles. Contadino could hear the distant sound of a cargo ship's horn as it approached the lock. He pulled the thick secondary half-gloves on over his normal shooting gloves, providing his palms with enough protection for what was coming. "Spank gloves" they called them.

One minute. They heard and saw the culverts open up nearly underneath them. Show time. Over twenty million gallons of water spilled out of the massive culverts built into the retaining walls of the canal. This lock and the one before it would have to equalize, lowering the water level in the previous lock and raising the water level in this one. Then the locks would open and let the ship through. Easy. And they had a perfect vantage point.

Right on schedule, the lock gates started to swing open against the weight of the water. It was contrary to common belief, a surprisingly fast process. Hydraulic struts heaved the hollow gates open with minimal fuss from the twenty-five horsepower motors responsible for moving them. There was no spillover as it opened, a credit to the designers of the lock system.

"Get ready," Contadino said. "Spool out on my mark."

The gates finally locked back at full extension to allow the Panamax ship through. It was pretty goddamn large in the lieutenant's opinion as it started to move. They had to time this right. The cargo ship started to steam in underneath them.

"Ropes now, now, now," he said.

Sergeants First Class Miles Chen and Val Hark heaved the heavy ropes out over the edge as the conning tower of the ship passed them. They were practically invisible in the darkness as they spooled out downwards to fall on the deck.

"Let's go," Contadino said.

He and Chen grabbed the end of the ropes still anchored to the wall, turned around, and then kicked off. Contadino felt his body hang in the void, his feet dangling for a moment before he tucked them in to clamp down on the rope. Allowing his weight and gravity to pull him down while managing his fall with his hands and knees, he took the opportunity to look back up. The other men of the team were hitching up and dropping as well. Fast-roping was traditionally done from a helicopter, but since a helicopter would have been far too obvious, they were performing it from a forgotten crevice in the side of the Panama Canal. Marine Recon improvised in adversity. Army Special Forces _thrived_.

Even with the secondary glove, he could feel the friction of the thick gloves rubbing against the thick rope as he slid. It wasn't a long drop, but it certainly felt that way. He loosened and then tightened his grip slightly as the deck of the ship drew closer. Contadino hit the deck like a ghost, his knees flexing with the impact and he was up and scanning with his MP7. Chen crept up next to him and patted his shoulder. At least one pair made it. The mission would go forward.

The other members of Romeo Team hit the deck in short intervals behind them. Blane came down last with Staff Sergeant Hector Grey and then pulled the ropes clean out of the moorings and respooled them for either later use or disposal. No going back now for sure. All Ghosts active and accounted for. He activated the night optics built into his monocle, turning the world a greenish-gray and white.

"Okay, Ghosts, let's move out, activate NOD." he said, waving them forward. He then switched over to the command frequency again. "Baseplate, Romeo Team is now on-mission."

Using his chest-mounted "stylus," he designated search paths for the rest of the team. They fanned out in pairs to work their way forward toward the two hatches leading into the conning tower. He kept Blane at his side as they moved up towards the conning tower. There was a single guard standing around on the rear railing. Contadino raised his MP7 and extended its stock before shouldering it to sight down the Aimpoint ACOG mounted on its top rail. There was just enough magnification to make out the Heckler & Koch MP5K in his hands.

"Guard on the railing. Taking," he said, calling his target.

Lining up the shot was simple. The submachine gun barely kicked in his hands as he fired a single round. Above them, the armed guard hadn't even seen the intruders before the top of his head exploded in a fine mist. The body slumped sideways and the small submachine gun he had been carrying clattered quietly against the deck. Good hit. He could see the warmth of the blood sprayed against the wall where the guard had been standing against.

"Target down. Target down," Chen whispered over the radio, confirming the kill from a closer position. "Clean shot, Ghost Lead."

He flagged the body for later disposal before continuing forward. The rest of his team was making good time, sweeping through the aft section of the deck without contact. When they made it to the tower's entrance hatches, he split the team even further. Two men would proceed along each side topside to clear out the rest of the deck just in case while the remaining four, including himself, would enter the tower and clear it out.

The hatch was unlocked. Sloppy of them. Contadino nodded to Blane and grabbed the handle and pulled it open. The Master Sergeant led in with his MP7 the moment there was enough space. He followed him, his own submachine gun up. They were in an empty corridor with minimal cover and thick pipes running along the walls. Seen one carrier interior, seen them all. The lights were on so he switched off his NOD.

"Let's do this, shall we?" Blane said, his smirk obvious despite the balaclava covering much of his face.

"Remember to stay quiet, boys," Contadino said over the general frequency as he and Blane crept along. "Do not engage unless sure." He keyed Blane's private frequency. "Was that a little over-dramatic, Ghost?"

"You're Ghost Lead," Blane said. "You're allowed to be a little over-dramatic."

The team checked in regularly as they cleared the entrance and the corridors beyond. Lengths of thin steel cable welded with the help of a small propane torch provided rear security, keeping checked hatches shut. Most, if not all of the crew was asleep in their rooms. They certainly didn't encounter any crew wandering the corridors.

About to round a corner, Blane held his hand up in a fist. Contadino stopped immediately and dropped into a deeper crouch behind him. Blane held up two fingers and pumped them in the direction of the corner. Two potential hostiles. Initiate contact or wait for them to verify their status? It would be much faster to just turn and dispatch the two of them. But there was always the chance of them being non-combatants. He had to make a decision.

"Ghost Lead, Team Four here," a voice came in over the radio, suddenly. "Had a brief chat with a tango. The entire ship's on the payroll. All contacts are to be considered armed and hostile."

Contadino looked up at Blane. They exchanged looks for a moment.

"Team Four, Ghost Lead," he said. "He was _sure_ about this? I don't want to have to accidentally light up a non-combatant."

"Pretty sure, Ghost Lead," Staff Sergeant Rick Grigsby said. "I've got a way with words."

Blane gave him a nod. Contadino sighed with relief. "Okay. All Ghosts, this is Ghost Lead. All contacts are to be considered hostile. Light them up."

Taking a moment to position himself, he patted Blane's shoulder. They turned the corner as one just as the two contacts were about the round the corner. The two newly-designated tangos had only a moment to gawk at the two masked and armed men before a pair of double-taps took them down. Already he could see several beacons appear on his tactical map. Bodies for pick up. He looked down at the two bodies. They had been carrying cut-down Remington 870 pump-action shotguns. Excellent close-range weapons that would have likely torn the two Ghosts up. Upon closer inspection he realized that the weapons had been left without a shell in the chamber. Idiots. Marking the bodies on his map, he waved Blane forward.

"Ghost Lead, Team Three is clear with sector. Moving to hold entry positions," Sergeant First Class Norm Wade said. Team Four reported in a moment after them and Contadino watched as their icons fell back to their initial breach points of the tower.

They secured the rest of the deck without any further encounters. Team Two met them at the main staircase leading up. They crept up to the second level of the tower and fanned out into another search pattern. The ship was awful quiet, even with the number of body markers that the sweep teams were racking up. Contadino thought he could scent something through his frozen and balaclava-covered nose. There. He waved for Blane to cover as he approached one of the hatches. He could smell a coppery tang in the air mixed with good amounts of fecal matter and urine. The stench of death.

Blane opened the hatch this time. Even before he stepped through, Contadino already could smell what awaited him. The corpses were fresh enough that the flies hadn't started crawling yet. One of the processes that the body undergoes upon death is the sudden cessation of electrical impulses keeping certain muscles and organs in check. Sphincters become flaccid to release a flood of whatever wastes a person had left in their system in life. The lieutenant was reminded of his as his boots squelched in a slurry of blood, urine, and fecal matter. He played the tactical light of his submachine gun over the bodies just to make sure the cameras built into his rig could record it. Command would want to at least have a look at this.

"Baseplate, this is Ghost Lead," he said, fighting back a surge of bile. "Are you seeing this?"

"Crisp and clear, Ghost Lead," the voice on the other side of the link said, voice still remarkably even despite what they were undoubtedly seeing.

These were the crew of the cargo ship. The rounds looked well-placed, execution shots. But there was also a more wild spray of holes throughout the pile of corpses. Shooters making sure about their job? It seemed likely. Backing out, Contadino waved for Blane to wire the hatch shut. He took a steadying breath of what was now sweet clean air. That had been unpleasant beyond words. But he still had a mission to complete. He could complain later to the shrinks. They marked the cable with a red glowstick for later pick-up.

"Team Two, you find any bodies?" he asked Chen over the radio. "One of the cabins was piled high with them. Looks like the crew."

"Uh, negative," Chen said from his position on the opposite side of the tower. "Will keep you informed, Ghost Lead."

The silence was stomach-churning for Contadino. He and Blane cleared the rest of the deck without encountering a soul. Panamax ships were large but all of their space was taken up by cargo containers. They had small crews, and considering their grisly find, the ship likely had no crew save the tangos who had killed them. More incentive to get the ship cleaned out. There was only another pair of decks to clear, the second being the bridge.

"Ghost Lead, you see anything?" Slade asked from his position outside.

"Nothing to note, Ghost," he responded. If only he'd seen it as well… "Initiate breach and stay sharp. Keep it quiet, Ghosts."

"Roger, Ghost Lead," Slade said, his icon already moving with the others on the small map projected on Contadino's eyepiece. "Breaching now."

Now it was an informal competition to see who could locate the package first, the four Ghosts searching below deck or the four Ghosts who were going to have a toss-around of the bridge and its computers for some likely locations. No need to rush it, though. Contadino breached the staircase with Blane and continued up to the next deck. All quiet again. No, wait one. He picked up the sounds of boot steps. Waving Blane forward, Contadino lined up his shot at approximately head-height for the target. They generally shot center-mass, but sometimes a quieter approach was needed. A headshot ensured that there would be no inconvenient screaming or convulsive fire from downed tangos. Their specialized solid hollow-point rounds helped to tag the somewhat elusive medulla oblongata.

A single shot was what it took. The tango fell into Blane's waiting arms, which lowered the corpse slowly to the ground. Blane pumped a round of his own into what was left of the tango's neck just to be sure. There wasn't much of a point seeing as that Contadino's shot had sprayed much of the back of the corpse's head out behind him. Marking the body, they continued on their way.

There was no way that the tangos would have left the ship practically abandoned. Not with their precious cargo aboard. And who would be piloting the ship?

The deck was cleared out without any problems, Team One and Team Two meeting at the access way to the bridge. Team Two hadn't encountered any resistance whatsoever on that deck sweep, but they still exchanged their partially-used forty-round magazines for fresh magazines from the pouches strapped to their vests. Minimal resistance at first was rarely a good sign. Time to go loud. Contadino tapped his flashbang and pointed at Hark and Chen. Their signal to initiate breach. Checking the hatch, he counted off with his off-hand for the benefit of the others before hauling the metal door open. The two Sergeants First Class pulled the pin from their M84s and bowled them into the bridge. He then pushed the hatch back into place just before the flashbangs went off. It felt like a freight train had run over his head when he pulled the door open again for his team to enter.

Room clearing is a matter of trust. You had to trust the guy in front of you and the guy behind you to keep to their sectors. They would have to engage _only_ in their sectors, leaving any enemy contact specifically not in their sector to whoever it was assigned to. And you had to pay close attention so you didn't wind up shooting a buddy. But this was all automatic for the men of the Ghost teams.

Contadino followed in last with Blane in front of him and Team Two in front of him. Performing a basic four-man penetration, they entered the bridge. They arrayed themselves around the central table, submachine guns up and pointing into their sectors. Five tangos. All but one of them were still reeling from the effects of the flashbang. That lucky guy got topped first by Chen with a pair of rapid double-taps. The others were easy prey with their bodies exposed and their weapons too far away to reach before they were cut down by the Ghosts.

Just as quickly as they had initiated the engagement, they had ended it just as quickly. The four Ghosts found themselves standing in the middle of the bridge with dead bodies and spent shell casings around them. None of their Warfighter Systems indicated that they had been injured. Another clean sweep, and in under ten seconds according to their mission clock.

"Clear," Blane said.

Chen and Hark echoed him, "Clear."

"Room clear," Contadino said finally. "Team Three, Team Four, Ghost Lead. Bridge secured. Sitrep."

"Still checking, Ghost Lead," Grigsby said. "No contacts so far."

"Roger, Ghost. We'll be checking in with their database to see if we can find the listing," he said, waving for Blane and the others to find terminals to begin checking.

He walked over to check the corpses, using his boot to push their weapons out of their hands: a pair of Israeli-made Uzis, an MP5K, a TEC-9, and a worn-looking Kalashnikov that he couldn't make out the details of in the darkness. The bodies, weapons, and casings would have to be disposed of during exfil, bothersome but necessary.

A minute passed as Contadino checked Teams Three and Four's progress sweeping the lower decks of the cargo ship on his eyepiece. Without the Cross-Com of the modern Warfighter System, he had no chance to actually link into their cameras for a closer look, but the tactical map that was projected by his eyepiece was just as good. He watched as the four icons swarmed through a wireframe based on schematics pulled from several databases. They stopped occasionally and a marker for corpse retrieval would appear. Making good progress then. He could count three such markers since their initial breach.

"Ghost Lead, we have a match," Chen said from the terminal he was working at. "Registry for Tterrab Industries. Registry is: Golf-six-seven-eight-four-five-two-zero-five-six."

He keyed up the two teams below. "Ghost Lead here. Search for registry code golf-six-seven-eight-four-five-two-zero-five-six."

"Roger, Ghost Lead. We will have it in sight in approximately four seconds."

"Good to hear. We're on our way," Contadino said, making a circular motion at the men on the bridge. "Let's get this thing cleaned up."

The Ghosts filed out with Contadino the last out of the bridge. Safely outside, he hefted the detonator in his hand and squeezed down on the paddle. Sixteen inch-wide blocks of brick-red Semtex detonated simultaneously back inside the bridge, destroying the hardware which were now missing their hard drives, safely sealed up in individual plastic bags for transport. The explosion had been only enough to gut the computers and databases, not enough to cause too much damage to everything else, but playing it safe was always a good idea. He had a feeling the four drives were going to make Romeo Team _very_ popular with the intel unit.

They hurried down into the bowels of the ship, following the path of the other half of the team. Contadino had run a few traffic interdictions in his time, but the interiors of cargo ships always made him stop and look. Much of the cavernous cargo areas were painted a yellowing white from what little he could see between the cargo containers that were stacked high to the ceiling. They stepped past and over several of the bodies that they had tagged as well. Clean kills with no overpenetration. He'd have to buy at least two rounds when they got back.

Romeo Team reunited in front of the area allotted to Tterrab Industries containers, near the prow of the ship. They were not looking at high stacks of containers for a change. A four-man team could have cleared the section in about five minutes. Romeo Team's complement of eight soldiers cut that time down exponentially. And the registry code was likely in the middle of it all. Contadino waved for the team to spread out and start looking.

They spread out and started walking along the narrow paths between containers, reading the at times illegible registry numbers painted on the metal containers. Most of these contained heavy farm equipment, but the Geiger counters built into their IWS were there for a reason. Those had already started clicking quietly in their ears before Contadino had even come within a meter of the Tterrab section.

"Ghost Lead," Grey said, waving his hand slightly to get his attention.

No words needed to be said. The container was visibly rusting and water damaged, its paint peeling and cracking, and the doors slightly ajar. Contadino waved for Slade to join Grey to check it and for the other Ghosts to stay back. He watched from a bit closer as the two Ghosts performed a rapid check for tripwires or anti-tampering devices that might have been wired to the door. Nothing they could see. He cautiously approached, aware of the Geiger counter practically buzzing. Surprisingly high background radiation coming from the container. Hotter than normal but not hotter than nuclear waste. Bingo.

The two Ghosts hauled the doors open while Contadino, Blane, and Chen entered with their weapons drawn. Nothing. Literally nothing. They found themselves staring at an empty cargo container. Well, not completely empty. A brownish-red sludge covered the floor. The lieutenant felt his skin prickle.

"Baseplate, Baseplate, this is Ghost Lead," Contadino said after a moment. "We…we have an Empty Quiver. Say again, Empty Quiver."

* * *

Introductory Brief to the 5th Army Special Operations Group (Excerpt)

The United States has had a long tradition of special operations forces stretching back to the Civil War with the Jessie Scouts. Over the years, the US military's special operations capability has only increased. The 5th Special Operations Group is merely an extension of this. Founded back during the Vietnam War, the special forces unit has seen increased backing and funding in the Durling and Ryan administrations. Currently numbering four battalions, one battalion is always on-call 24/7 for whenever a rapid response is required. The 5th SOG is currently one of the premier SOCOM units, many of its operators having been awarded Intelligence and Silver Stars for actions on the field either covert or overt. Despite rumors to the contrary, neither the 5th SOG nor other Army Special Forces groups have female operators in their ranks.

* * *

Well, here we are again with the start of a second novelization. While I do admire Tom Clancy's work, sometimes it and its commercially-driven spinoffs make me rage. This is sort of a response to the utter ridiculousness that the Ghost Recon series has become. Come on, sending a lone four-man team to stop a freaking revolution? Where did that even come from? Not to mention how the Ghosts, technically Green Berets, are in fact something closer to D3L74-boys. So here's the beginning of what will hopefully be a much more realistic take on the events of GRAW 2. Commentary and advice is always welcome.


	2. Chapter 1: Posse Comitatus

"Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

-Title 18, Part I, Chapter 67, § 1385: Use of Army and Air Force as posse comitatus

* * *

_Cuidad Juarez, Mexico_

_0417 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

Their cause was just. They could not fail. Alberto Lopez took a breath and squeezed the trigger. The RPG-7 tube bucked against his shoulder as it fired its high-explosive payload. He watched, entranced by the momentary white contrail left by the rocket as it streaked toward its target. It was glorious as a hot wave of air washed over him when the high-explosive warhead detonated, tearing apart the Mexican Army HMMWV by the Bridge of the Americas and sending a fireball into the predawn darkness.

His bothers fired immediately after him, their rockets and gunfire tearing apart the small watch station that had been set up in the last year after the failed Ontiveros coup. But they had learned. They had to take the fight to the enemy, the _norteamericano_. There would be no quarter given now.

They stopped after a moment, lowering their weapons and cautiously advancing on the ruined station. Their instructors had taught them well, despite being Colombians. The ambush had turned the entire entrance of the bridge into a flaming war zone. Two Army HMMWVs were gutted by the anti-tank warheads of their RPGs. Dead soldiers and police lay around the bullet-ridden building and its surroundings, silent testament to amount of fire they had brought down on the one thing stopping them from crossing over.

"Lopez, here."

He turned and accepted the Heckler & Koch G36 from his brother Emilio, it had been stripped from the corpse of one of the pigs. His supply of RPG warheads had been expended during the ambush, and the Glock he carried was likely going to be ineffective against whatever lay on the other side of the bridge.

"Thanks," he said with a nod. He then raised his voice to get the rest of his cell's attention. "Let's go!"

The rest of their cell poured out of the shadows, a dozen in total. They were carrying a mixture of old AKs and weapons liberated from now-burning police stations. Dressed in a wide variety of jerseys and military-style fatigues, they looked every inch of the drug gang that the Lopez Brothers were. They take away their livelihood, and they collaborate with the gringos? What did they expect to happen? But now it was time for a new America. An America without the United States.

They stepped gingerly over the occasional burning corpse, firing at the occasional _federale_ who hadn't had the good sense to die during the ambush. Before he knew it, they were already at the center of the bridge. They made no attempt to hide what they were doing, calmly walking rather than hiding and creeping in the shadows.

Lights. Lopez raised his hand to shield his eyes from the blinding searchlights that were suddenly coming from the American side of the bridge. His German-made assault rifle came up as an American-accented voice rang across the darkness.

"Put your weapons down and return immediately."

Several of his brothers slowed for a moment until they saw him still walking as if nothing were wrong. They had nothing to fear. This would be over quickly.

"Put your weapons down. This is your last-"

The voice was interrupted by a burst of gunfire, cutting the speaker off. Explosions rocked the American counterpart to the Mexican post that they had just destroyed. They could see fireballs rising into the sky as whatever vehicles the Americans had parked on their side detonated from a combination of massed RPGs and gunfire. Much like their own ambush, things went quiet very quickly and very suddenly.

"_Rayos_!" he called out into the blinding lights.

The reply came back immediately. "_Truenos_!"

Smiling, he slapped Emilio's shoulder before raising his radio to his lips. "Puente Río Bravo secure."

They walked forward into the lights to meet their brothers-in-arms on the other side with smiles and open arms. Today was the beginning of a new era.

* * *

_Laredo, Texas_

_0532 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

"Jesus Christ! This is Adam-Three-Three!" Officer Esteban Benitez shouted into the radio. "We've got some trouble here! Officer down!"

"Hold one, Adam-Three-Three," the dispatcher said. "We are currently-" His voice dissolved into static.

_What the fuck?_

He realized that a lucky shot had severed his radio handset. Hunkered down behind his patrol car, there wasn't much that Greggs could do. Another round of automatic fire rattled against the other side of the patrol car as if emphasizing that thought. They had been ambushed out of nowhere. After receiving reports of some sort of disturbance, he'd been sent with his partner Chris Greggs only to meet a small army of gangbangers along the way. Armed gangbangers. They opened up on their motley assortment of submachine guns, pistols, shotguns, and the occasional assault rifle. Thankfully the now-ruined patrol car had provided enough cover to keep the bullets from punching through and hitting him and the already-cooling body of his partner and friend.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered again, wishing for better cover along the avenue leading to the border.

Not only did he have to worry about the gangbangers in front but also worry if there were any smart ones who circled around the block and were about the end him right then and there. He fired off the last two rounds in his service pistol, an old first-generation Glock 17, at the gangbangers on the other side. Fumbling with his last magazine, Benitez managed to slide it in place and slapped the slide stop to chamber the first round.

He peeked around the corner when there was a momentary lull in firing. They were still there, but they were reloading. Sliding back behind cover, he glanced over to Greggs's body and then at one of the storefronts, a KFC. He unholstered his dead partner's Glock after a moment's thought and shoved it into his own now-empty holster along with refilling his own empty magazine pouches.

"Come on, buddy," he muttered. "Just a little further."

Grabbing the body by its arms, Benitez grunted as he started pulling Greggs toward the storefront. About to exit the cover of the patrol car, he raised his sidearm and emptied half a magazine at the gangbangers. That got a response. They scattered slightly when several of the closer ones caught jacketed hollow-points for their troubles. With most of them still reloading, he'd gained a reprieve as he hauled his friend's corpse out of the line of fire.

He managed to someone get to the door of the store, but found it locked, the lights off. Not a 24-hour franchise then.

"Son of a bitch!" he screamed, kicking the door.

Picking up Greggs again, he made for the drive-through at the side of the building, staggering under his partner's weight. The window there was opened up with the help of his Glock. He buffaloed the glass out before first pushing his partner through and following him in.

It was nearly completely dark in the drive-through booth even with the rising sun. Benitez looked around, his flashlight already on and up in the old Harries method. The cone of light didn't reveal much except that the restaurant wasn't open and nobody was there. Or at least nobody wanted to see who it was that had broken in. He made a circuit of the kitchen and the eating area just to make sure that nobody was there before he finally lowered his Glock and found a seat on the floor behind the counter. He pulled his handset off of his belt, tossing the blocky radio away. The bullet that had torn a hole through it had obviously rendered it more dead-weight.

Wait a second, his phone! He dug the department-issued cellphone out of his pocket and turned it on. They had been permitted to carry them over a decade ago with the September 11th attacks, but the Ryan Doctrine had been a sufficient deterrent up until now. He dialed in his station house's private line hoping that nobody had knocked out the cell towers yet.

"This is Officer Esteban Benitez," he said rapidly once connected. "Badge number Seven-One-Four. Adam-Three-Three. Officer down, and a massive riot on our hands."

"Officer Benitez," the voice began. He recognized it as belonging to Jan Garcia, one of the clerical staffers. "We understand, but we're swamped on our side. Where are you?"

"Juarez-Lincoln Bridge. Six blocks north on the western side. My patrol car's outside."

"Understood. Is your partner okay?"

"No," he said simply.

"Understood. Sit tight. We'll send reinforcement as soon as possible."

The phone went dead.

"Now what?" he said, looking over at Greggs. He could hear the crowds coming closer.

* * *

_Fort Bliss, Texas_

_0530 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

The base had been wide awake for possibly only five minutes before they heard the explosions out along the border with Juarez. Base commo had started receiving mixed reports on civilian channels about roving gangs armed to the tooth around a minute after that. Home of the First Armored Division, Fort Bliss was immediately abuzz with activity. The men and women of Old Ironsides had been placed on alert for the past year after the Ontiveros insurrection that had nearly spilled over onto American soil. So it was a simple matter of following the weekly drills, loading and double-checking their equipment and preparing for deployment.

Staff Sergeant Cory Halverson smacked the tray of the M240B shut on top of the new belt of 7.62x51mm ammunition, the clasp engaging with a firm click. Leaning against it, he watched elements of the Sixth Infantry and Thirteenth Cavalry Regiment pass by loaded for bear. But no get-together of the Fourth Heavy Brigade Combat Team was complete without First Battalion, Seventy-seventh Armor showing up.

"Hey, someone pass me the damn wrench!" Corporal Todd Katz, their driver, shouted from inside the M1A2 Abrams. "The right piston's stuck!"

He leaned over to pick the wrench and handed it down to the loader. Taking a long drink from a bottle of water, he spat on his grease-covered hands and wiped them off on his olive-drab coveralls. It'd have to do. Both 240 Bravos were loaded, which left their new coaxial mount to be checked. The division-wide upgrade of the Integrated Warfighter System had left a good number of Old Ironsides with mismatching and downright bizarre equipment. He'd heard rumors of, among other things, infantrymen being issued "new" M16A2 rifles that had been fitted with IWS hardware. It made him grateful for the things that they were given. Like the new TUSK Remote Weapons Station mounting a Mark 19 grenade launcher that had replaced what had previously been an M2HB. _That_ had been moved off to the right side with its own night/thermal sight. Waste not, want not. Their M1A2 Abrams could put enough firepower to devastate an infantry company in a few seconds.

"Hey, are we done?" he asked after a minute.

Katz's response was prefaced with a string of obscenities following the sound of him banging into something. "One second! Yeah!"

He finally climbed out and dropped the wrench to the side and made a grab for the bottle of water. Halverson let him have it as he climbed over to check the grenade launcher mounting for full rotation before loading a fresh belt of the chunky forty-millimeter grenades. They'd probably have to perform a function check of the electronics on the move assuming this full-scale deployment was for real.

There were some more explosions in the distance, not unlike mortars, and much closer than the last series. So whatever was out there was getting nearer.

"Sergeant Halverson," he heard from over the side of the Abrams. Captain Neville Blackburn had a distinctive voice, raspy after the accidental tracheotomy several years ago when a Russian RPG had detonated a little too close for comfort during the Siberian campaign. He had an IWS headset that Halverson could tell was active from the subtle lighting of the monocle of the IWS component. Blackburn was likely getting constant updates and feedback on what was happening. "You should really leave maintenance to the motorpool staff."

Halverson leaned over to talk face-to-face with his company commander. "Captain, I'll entrust O.D. Bastard's maintenance to the motorpool when the front end falls off." He paused for a moment before asking, "Any word on deployment, sir?"

"Division's worried about rolling us through the streets, so they're sending the infantry and cavalry to perform a recon by fire."

Whatever else the captain was going to say was interrupted by another string of explosions, these even closer. It sounded like they had wound up _in_ the base. Blackburn glanced at him and stepped back to scan something streaming in on his eyepiece. Nodding to himself, he gave Halverson a thumbs up.

"It's official. Get your team together," he said before cocking his head. "And get your headset on. I'll ignore it this time."

The other tankers in Bravo Company had started scrambling to gear up to deploy, filling the motorpool with an earsplitting clamor as HEMTTs rolled out with pallets of shells for their 120mm M256A1 guns to be drawn and loaded into their ammunition stores aboard their Abrams by the crews. Halverson looked around, trying to spot the other two men of his crew, Sergeant Leon Blackwell and Private Jaime Sellers in the crowds.

"Boss," Katz said from below him.

He looked down and picked up his IWS's Cross-Com headset from his driver's hand and slipped it over his head. Jacking the headset into the cellphone-sized IWS hub designed for tankers, he powered it up and slid the transparent eyepiece over his left eye. The tactical display immediately sprang to life, the combination of lasers and OLEDs projecting a widescreen overlay over his environment. As his head turned, the equipment around him was highlighted in sequence and he was given thorough profiles of said equipment, complete with small rotating schematics. Another display showing operational orders flashed for his attention. It seemed far too Hollywood for him at times. He pulled his actual helmet over the headset and brought a listing of secure channels for his platoon up with a few eyeblinks, narrowing it down to his crew a moment later.

"Blackwell, Sellers, where the hell are you?" he asked, hoping they had remembered to wear their headsets. Talk about setting a poor example. "We're being mobilized."

"Sellers here, Sergeant," the private responded a second later. "We were just getting some water. We'll be back in a minute."

"Okay, get back quick," he said before addressing Katz. "Get in and get O.D. Bastard revved up. I'll go see about our ammo."

Sliding off onto the asphalt of the motorpool, he walked headlong into the mass of tankers clamoring for ammunition for their main guns. HEMTTs could carry massive loads of shells, each shell weighing in at excess of a hundred pounds at times. Most carts at the lowest bidder would break under the weight of a single shell. So the HEMTTs had to make personal deliveries of a sort. Eventually finding one of the massive trucks unoccupied after offloading a full load of shells for a nearby Abrams, Halverson gestured for him to come over and load O.D. Bastard next.

Blackwell and Sellers arrived just in time to assist in the loading, although Sellers had to first unload his armful of water bottles. The HEMTT rolled over into place and its crane swung into motion to pluck rounds off of the back of the truck and handing them over to the waiting tank crew. Whoever the operator was was skilled at his job. Halverson and Sellers accepted the rounds and handed them off to Blackwell and Katz down below to be loaded into the magazine. Working together, they had the magazine topped off with its maximum forty-two rounds in well under five minutes.

The mortar fire had tapered off after a while. It was, however, replaced by the crackle of gunfire. Fresh waypoints flashed on the small map window of his Cross-Com's displays. Most of them were for the cavalry and infantry units of the Fourth BCT, as well as several for Fort Bliss's Marine Detachment. Odd that whoever was up top had deployed them. This wasn't their fight. Even with their trainer equipment loaded for bear, they still weren't the best tankers. Gung-ho fighting spirit could remedy many things. Experience in moving tracks through a seriously built-up urban environment was not one of them.

"Sergeant Halverson," Blackwell said to get his attention from the hatch of the tank. "We're good to go."

Checking the M9A1 strapped to his leg, he nodded and slid down into the crew compartment of O.D. Bastard. Katz had started the gas turbine engine up, and he listened to the growing whine of the massive power plant as it spun up to speed. He could feel the power running through his tank as if O.D. Bastard was raring for a fight. He knew he was. They could finally get some action.

"Let's roll out, boys," he said as he looked around at the screens arrayed around the commander's chair. "Waypoints are up."

The last one in, he dogged the hatch behind him. The Abrams rolled out surprisingly smoothly, testament to Katz's skill as a driver. They merged into their company's column headed out for the city. Time to fight. Halverson leaned back and let the data on his screens wash over him through the noise of the tank.

With a tank commander's lock-outs in place, he had a limited palette of options available to him through the Integrated Warfighter System. There were tabs for communicating with other elements in the city who were linked up to form the local IWS network. Other tanks, infantry units, and extremely limited air support. The local police hadn't been equipped with IWS units, but IWS network could receive signals from their squad cars' GPS units. The layout of the signals projected on the map of the city didn't paint a pretty picture.

They exited Fort Bliss from the new eastern gate by Biggs AAF, the armored column turning south toward El Paso International Airport. The Army was going to war, and they were bringing _everything_.

* * *

_White House Complex, Washington D.C._

_0531 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

"Who the hell is this 'Juan de la Barrera' character anyway?" President James Ballantine snarled as he walked toward the White House Situation Room, flanked by a veritable army of staffers.

"I think I can answer that for you, Mister President," an aging but stoutly built officer said, walking up and alongside him. He wore an Army Service Uniform that had been thoroughly sanitized leaving only the patch of the United States Special Operations Command and the star of a brigadier general. No name tape, and no awards.

"And who the hell are you?" Ballantine asked, turning to face him.

"General Joshua Keating, Fifth Special Operations Group, we've never met in person, sir," he said. The name triggered ghosts of the president's memories of the events last year. "We've been investigating this de la Barrera for half a year now. He'd popped up on our screens for about that long when he'd released his first video online. Leads a movement called '_Los __Niños Héroes_' or 'The Boy Heroes' in literal translation. We thought he was just another one of the grassroots movements that started after the Ontiveros incident last year."

"No need to remind _me_, General," Ballantine said, his arm flexing at the memory of having to defend himself against an onslaught of rogue Mexican forces. "I remember that every morning when I look in the mirror. Continue."

"Yes, sir," Keating said, before coming up to the final security door leading into the Situation Room, sketching a salute for the four guards there before swiping his card across the reader. "Seven days ago, a number of Soviet Red Star IV warheads reappeared on the market. We were able to track down the majority of the buyers and neutralize their purchases. However, a-"

Ballantine held a hand up as they walked into the Situation Room proper. "General, I heard you say _majority_. I might not be a soldier, but I know _majority_ is not something I want to hear. Particularly of the nuclear kind. Now then," he looked at the others already seated there. "I believe you know these men and women?"

Keating nodded as he scanned the people already seated in the Situation Room. They were the brain that ran the military and intelligence-gathering infrastructure of the United States. Without them, America would be left as soft as a mewling kitten to its enemies. He knew them, but they would never know him. Not if he had anything to say about it. He and his command, the Fifth Special Operations Group could exist only in the shadows. They were the violent men who ensured that peace, not war, was what the world desired.

"Okay, hit me," Ballantine said, sitting down at his seat and accepting the mug of coffee gratefully. "What are we looking at here? Tina?"

Tina Fleiss, the new Deputy Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, nodded and tapped something into the laptop in front of her. One of the screens that had been installed in the latest renovation of the Situation Room switched to time-lapsed satellite imagery. Keating watched from behind the president as the imagery repeated itself several times while the deputy director of the NGA selected several notable areas for magnification. What they showed wasn't pretty.

"At approximately six o'clock PM yesterday, our satellites began picking up some…significant activity, in Colombia, Honduras, Panama, and Mexico, among other places," she said, spreading out the selections to the other screens hanging from the ceiling. "Retasking of several satellites revealed that these were coordinated actions. By ten PM, the majority of the activity had ceased with the surrender of multiple military bases. Our interpreters have found high-density movement of troops and armor in all countries affected two hours afterward. All indicators point toward northward movement. At four o'clock this morning, our satellites watching the border reported significant thermal activity corresponding with significant usage of armor assets as well as high-intensity fires. Closer inspection with lapsed image comparison has revealed significant movements of armed persons entering the United States through multiple points along the Mexican border."

The Secretary of Defense Frank Williams sputtered, "So you're telling me that an _uprising_ by _civilians_ captured all of the military bases of Central America? And they've invaded the United States?" Someone was obviously unbriefed.

"The majority of them, yes," Fleiss said with a nod.

Keating walked over to the imagery to examine it. They'd undoubtedly be receiving this intel shortly back at the shop to initiate operations. Better to at least get a head start on it. Fourteen bases on-screen: motorpools, barracks, and airstrips covered a number of the pictures. All of them completely emptied.

"I'll ignore that, Frank," Ballantine said, taking a sip of the coffee. "Recommendations?"

"Current reports indicate that our bases on the border are under attack. Well-armed militia, Spanish speaking, extremely well coordinated with civilian-band radios," Deputy Director Thomas Reed said. Keating never particularly trusted the No Such Agency's assets, considering their previous work during the 2007 Far East Asian Crisis. This latest Deputy Director had been drawn from the Air Force's cyberwarfare division, and spoke like someone in the know. "Assets are being mobilized as we speak."

Ballantine nodded. "Initiative. I like that." He looked around at the others meaningfully like they should have already violated foreign soil with their own operations.

Keating only grunted. Apolitical, he didn't like working the Beltway for favors. "I can have several teams wheels up in approximately one hour to investigate, by your orders, sir."

"Do it," Ballantine said, before addressing the others. "I'm calling an emergency session to authorize full mobilization. Units at the border are hereby authorized to respond with lethal force to any attempts to attack them. We're at war again, ladies and gentlemen. Colonel Winters, I want your High Altitude squadron up in the air as quickly as possible. Work in coordination with General Keating over here. Let's see if we can minimize the blowback from this."

* * *

-

* * *

Author's Notes: Well, finished reading that POS called the HAWX novelization. It stunk even worse than the Ghost Recon novelization, and that's saying something. Yes, General, let's send a flight of _three _planes into hostile territory. Unarmed. Yes, the writer at least tries to justify the fact that they're unarmed, but _three_? Either the guy was already trying to kill off his pilots, or the particular David Michaels who wrote the novelization knows diddly-squat about how wing-men work. I'm betting on the latter. Sort of like Ghost Recon and its attempt at being "Ooooh, covert" and all tactical.

By the way, I'm taking some liberties with the storyline and progression to make it seem a little more plausible than "Oh noes, Mexico's invading! We must send a crack team of special forces to stop the crisis!" The enemy's already broken down the gates and is sitting in your living room and watching your TV. There's a reason why I've moved the story from the "Ghost Recon" category to the broader "Tom Clancy" category...


	3. Chapter 2: Retrocession

"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography"

-Ambrose Bierce

* * *

_El Paso, Texas_

_0540 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

"You know what we could _really use_?" Specialist Barry Dunn shouted to Corporal Adam Cobb who was holed up right next to him behind the HMMWV as rounds zipped overhead.

"Damn right," Cobb shouted back, a hand flying to the M67 strapped to his Improved Outer Tactical Vest as Dunn did the same. "Three!" he shouted.

Exchanging nods, they pulled the pins from their grenades and stood as one to turn and throw them downrange at the insurgents.

"Frag out!" Dunn shouted to the others of their platoon as they ducked back behind cover, chased by a surge of enemy fire.

The grenades detonated seconds later, but they couldn't actually hear anything with the auditory assault produced by all of the fire that the insurgents were pouring onto their position. Dunn had the sinking feeling that they would be walking shortly. Even their up-armored Humvees couldn't take _that_ much damage from small-arms fire. At least the frags had done something for clearing up some of the fire.

"Looking good, boys," Staff Sergeant Troy Logan shouted to them from his position nearby, working with the dismounted CROWS interface. It probably wasn't supposed to be handled that way, but needs must. And the ability to toss forty-millimeter grenades downrange was a must in this situation.

Besides, they were fighting what looked like a goddamn soccer gang in the middle of suburbia. Hemmed in on both sides by pastel-colored standardized housing. Wasn't there like some sort of video game like this? Dunn hoisted his M16A4 over the hood of their Humvee to get a lay of the land for himself. The IWS interface gave him a slightly shaky, grainy, and tilted horizontal view of the street in the corner of the transparent visor that slid on over his ballistic goggles. The grenades hadn't made them stop, but the shooters had been nicely depopulated.

He squeezed off a series of shots with his rifle still held over the hood. The wonders of using the lighter caliber 5.56x45mm round. His wrist was barely even twisted by the recoil as he tried to drop a tango. Even with the IWS crosshairs, the best he managed was to pepper the ground and other tangos around his target with slugs. He steadied himself and fired another double-tap. This time he hit home. The tango might have been wearing armor, but a vest was generally unhelpful when you wound up catching a pair of rounds just under your jaw-line. A pure luck shot. The IWS does many things, improving communications, coordination with unit assets, and the ability to get a grasp of the battlefield. It certainly does not improve your aim.

"Heads up, Hunter elements," a voice in his ear said. The Cross-Com labeled it as a transmission from an Air Force element. "I'd advise hunkering down. We'll be on top of your position in a few seconds. Danger close."

"Hey, since when did the Chair Force give two tugs about us for danger close?" Dunn shouted to Cobb as they fired a few more rounds downrange from behind their Humvee. He switched his Cross-Com's view to watch the Air Force element's view, his jaw dropping at the feed. "Holy _shit_! Get down! Get down!"

Grabbing Cobb, he pushed him down as a pair of fighter jets passed literally only a dozen feet over their heads. It felt as if his back had been ignited as the backwash of the jets' ramjets hit him like a sack of bricks. He saw them peel up before the street in front of him turned into a roiling fireball and a relentless auditory assault. Those flyboys had dropped a pair of GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs right on top of the insurgent position, turning everything in the blast radius into something resembling turkey hash from the detonation of the two Dense Inert Metal Explosives, which spread its high-density micro-shrapnel out like gigantic fragmentation grenades upon detonation. Effective tactic, but not exactly Dunn's idea of "rational" or "intelligent" when there were friendly units _sixteen feet away_. He'd buy those flyboys a drink and then punch both of them in the teeth if he met them later.

"Are you okay?" Logan shouted to them before looking down the line at the others. "You guys okay?"

"I'd be a lot better if the Air Force wasn't dropping fucking bombs on us, Sarge!" Cobb shouted back. "Do wonders for my combat stress!"

Their words sounded like he was listening to a conversation in a room filled with a screaming child. Dunn shook his head and tried to get back onto his feet. Picking up his dropped M16, he performed a quick function test to see if it had picked up any problems from being dropped. The shot in the back of a retreating insurgent answered his question easily.

"Ears are ringing," he remarked to Cobb in as close to a conversational tone as he could manage. "I can barely hear. You?"

Cobb nodded, turning toward him. His helmet cover had been partially shredded by the micro-shrapnel, and his face sported disconcerting streaks of red from where the DIME munitions had cut into him. "I'm good. Hey, dude, you're bleeding. Your ears."

He was. Dunn nodded as his gloved hand came away from under his helmet coated with a layer of blood. They'd been _far_ too close.

"I can't hear a thing. Did they stop shooting?" someone asked. He couldn't identify the voice.

"This is just like Fallujah, just a hundred times worse," Sergeant Quintus Epps remarked as he recharged his rifle behind another Humvee, referring to his participation in the Second Battle of Fallujah, a sign of how long their team leader had been in the Army.

"Just a hundred?" Corporal Lon Guzman asked next to him, another long-time veteran who had escaped promotion through a combination of poor grooming habits and a propensity for sleeping around with the officer corps' wives. By all accounts, Guzman and Epps had been in the same unit going way back when. "We're fighting Mexican terrorists on American soil, man. This is _not_ a hundred times worse. Add a few extra zeroes on that number."

The rest of the squad was silent, matching the explosive-induced lull in the fighting. What the corporal had said was right, no matter how they spun it. The boys of Fourth Battalion, Sixth Infantry Regiment were being deployed in El Paso to counter a thrust by what looked like the population of Mexico. Armed to the tooth as well. Elements of their Battalion had been deployed earlier in the morning to act as a recon force and draw out any threats with "a show of force" according to their commanders. In simple English: Sorry, Third Platoon, you're bait.

Maybe the higher-ups thought that they could use their updated netrocentric communications to rain some hyperwar on the heads of some unsuspecting terrorists or something. That was the fundamental problem with upper-ranks, in Dunn's not so humble opinion. Only a few of them had ever seen actual combat, and even fewer could remember that a bullet was a bullet, and it was generally addressed "to whom it concerns." Maybe it was just him blowing off steam, but the idea of a reconnaissance by fire hadn't appealed to him earlier. And with the explosively-resolved firefight, it appealed to him even less now. But at least they had air-support, which might or might not have been trying to kill them, depending on who you asked.

"Hey, are we clear?" someone called.

An irritated response came shortly, "Check your fuckin' map, asshole!"

At that, Dunn decided that it would probably be smart for him to check his own Cross-Com's map. The window opened with a laser-tracked eye-blink, giving him a somewhat smoke-obscured bird's eye view of the city in near-monochrome. His IWS had automatically magnified and centered his view on his current position, giving him a good view of his surroundings for a block around. There were stragglers at the edges but they had the good sense to steer clear. He got up with the others in his platoon, keeping his rifle trained on the other end of the street through the smoke and still-falling micro-shrapnel particulate.

"How's Sergeant Ruiz?" someone asked.

The fireteam leader's response came shortly, "I look like a goddamn vampire with all of this fucking stuff!"

First Squad's lead Humvee had sustained the highest casualty rate, one of their fireteam, PFC Malcolm Daniels was dead, and their leader Sergeant Ernesto Ruiz had caught a burst of rounds in his chest while getting out of the Humvee. His IOTV had taken the brunt of the burst of rifle rounds, but he wasn't in the best of condition. Laid out so he could continue laying down fire, he had been cleanly dusted in

Their HMMWV wasn't in the best of shape either. The storm of small-arms fire had turned the driver's side into a dimpled mess with shattered glass and mottled-looking armor paneling. The doors they had left open allowed the bullets inside to play holy hell with the upholstery as well, leaving the interior of the vehicle resemble the aftermath of a pillow fight gone wrong. Dunn leaned in to look around the interior.

"Anything salvageable?" Cobb asked as he leaned against the side of the Humvee.

"Well, yeah," Dunn said with a nod as he continued looking. "Whole thing _should_ still work. Looks like mostly superficial stuff. Hope you didn't leave anything you liked inside."

Cobb slapped his helmet with a hand as realization dawned during a denial. "No, I-oh, _son of a bitch_! My kid's toy!"

"Dude, what the fuck were you doing with a kid's toy in a Humvee?" Epps asked, walking over to inspect the damage while Sergeant Logan and PFC Mark Barlow lugged the CROWS control unit back onto the Humvee.

"I just bought the damn thing for River for her birthday!" Cobb said angrily, slamming a fist against the side of the Humvee. "Bought it before the goddamn call-up."

Checking his depleted magazine pouches, Dunn spoke to the grenadier. "Tell you what, Adam, you give me a pair of mags, I'll get River the biggest doll she'll ever have seen."

Cobb handed over a pair of his own magazines. "Better be big enough to fill a room by itself, Barry."

"You bet," Dunn said as he took the two spares. "Your wife won't even know what to do with it."

"We've got armor! Let's go hunting!" Lieutenant Tory Phelps called. "Mount up!"

* * *

_Tucson Airspace, Arizona_

_0601 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

This wasn't what the High Altitude Wing – Experimental was about. Major Lee "Chrome" Potts sighed wistfully as he leaned to look out over the city below him. He'd been born not too far from Tucson and had gone to school there. Now to look at it after a decade away. There were large smoke plumes to the south and he could see armed mobs clashing with the local police forces and whatever National Guard units could be mustered on short notice. It was a dead-lock. And it fell upon him and his wingmen to unlock it and minimize collateral damage while they were at it. But that was why God invented the birds, the bees, and the AGM-65 Maverick. There wasn't enough time in a day that Chrome could praise the missile and the hundred million dollar F-15SE Silent Eagle airframe it was strapped to.

"Got a lock," Captain Nathan "Buck" Reynolds said from behind him in the Combat Systems Officer's seat. "Technicals. On you, Chrome."

The day had started out so well, too. Colonel Hiller had come in with make-work for the day, "ordering" them to take the IFCS-upgraded F-15SE for a spin with an F-35C Lightning II escort. Five years old, the upgrade of the F-15E Strike Eagle had been overdue for an overhaul of its systems. The new Enhanced Reality System had been installed along with close to a hundred new regulators and cut-outs to keep the pilot nice and safe while interfacing with the Pentagon's beloved Integrated Warfighter System. New restraints would have been better than more software inhibitors, in Chrome's opinion. They knew how to keep the plane safe. The plane needed to keep them safe as well.

"Okay," he said after a moment to his CSO. "Let's try getting some testing done, shall we? JAGM," he said, indicating their experimental payload.

The Joint Air-to-Ground Missile was supposed to have gone with the Silent Eagle to Groom Lake for function tests, but there were certain "extenuating circumstances" as Hiller liked putting it. They were rerouted meters away from boarding the Silent Eagle. New orders were to fly to Tucson to support local forces in fighting off some sort of invasion. Live ammunition was spooled into their M61 Vulcans, and the mix of AIM-9X Sidewinders, AGM-65 Mavericks, and the two JAGMs they were supposed to test as a testament to the HAW-X technical staff's "why not combat test it?" mentality.

Chrome could name a few, but it wasn't his place to question the eggheads. He got to test out the best and newest in aircraft and weaponry on the Air Force's dime. And they had orders to "engage anything that looks non-friendly." That was reason enough for him, really.

"JAGM armed," Buck said after a second. "How do you want to do this?"

"I'll Cobra for the first one."

"You got it, Chrome. At your own time."

Chuckling, he disengaged the angle of attack limiters and pulled back hard while decelerating slightly. This threw the F-15SE into a hundred-degree angle of attack that also slammed them against their restraints. Their g-suits reacted, the bladders inflating to apply uniform pressure to their legs so their blood wouldn't pool and knock them out when none of the blood reached their heads. That single moment seemed to take an eternity before he applied the rudder.

Their F-15SE then pitched forward until its nose was nearly perpendicular with a little work on the rudder. In that moment, Chrome got a general idea what his CSO was targeting. The JAGM slid out of the internal carriage and dropped a meter before the motor ignited. It then arrowed forward, the mini-screen projected in the corner of Chrome's helmet-mounted display showing a view from the JAGM's nose camera. He watched it out of the corner of his eye as he brought the Silent Eagle back up to a stable flight path. The footage lasted for two more seconds as three pick-up trucks loaded with armed men grew larger before the image disappeared in a burst of static.

"Splash. Nice dispersion," Captain Allan "Mike" Crespo said from his lower position.

"Yeah, that's a hit," Buck said a moment later. "Let's see what else we have down there..."

Chrome switched to the command frequency to report. "Home Plate, this is Kestrel-Chrome. First JAGM is confirmed hot from high attack geometry," he said, using the non-standard but HAW-X-standard callsign scheme, referring first to the flight and then to his own callsign.

"Home Plate receives, Chrome," Hiller said crisply in his ear. "Telemetry's streaming in. Command wants to remind you, you are cleared hot on anything firing on American assets. Requests for ground support take precedence over our own experimentation."

"Chrome copies, Home Plate. Continuing run, Chrome out," he said before switching over to his flight's frequency. "Okay, Kestrels, time to earn our paychecks. Again. Two each, take any and all targets of opportunity. But remember that if any ground pounders need support, you're going to assist them first. Keep them alive and _then_ worry about racking up some kills."

"Copy," the response cascaded in from the three F-35s.

Chrome smiled. "Let's go hunting, shall we?"

"Tally ho!" Captain Valeriy "Rolex" Sokolov whooped as he threw his F-35 around to track a target.

Chrome chuckled. Rolex was the stereotypical cinematic jet jockey embodied. He'd likely already spotted a choice target and had been using the ERS to track it while flying in formation. Buck slapped his right shoulder twice.

"Look, sir, foot-mobiles," he quipped. "Want to turn her 'round for a shot?"

A quick magnification with the ERS showed exactly what his CSO was looking at: two dozen garishly-dressed and armed men advancing down a street on their three o'clock. Banking the F-15SE around, he armed his Mavericks in preparation for a run. Pumping a missile into a crowd wasn't going to win them any brownie points with the Colonel, or whoever was going to be assigned to cleaning up the mess afterwards.

"You're cleared," Chrome said. "Smoke 'em."

He watched their shared display with detached interest as his CSO aligned crosshairs on the front of the crowd. They could pick up the armed crowd's thermal signature, but even with the Maverick, a lock-on wasn't a guaranteed thing. So they had to reckon it and hope that the idiots passed something giving off a good amount of heat.

"Locked. Fox Two."

The Maverick dropped away from the internal carriage and arrowed forward when its motor ignited. Watching the nose camera feed, Chrome saw the missile realign itself slightly before slamming into a burning car wreck right next to the crowd as they passed. Buck knew his shit.

"Hit. Nice one, too, if I may say so myself," Buck said. "Hey, what the hell-? Bogies, out at our seven. Hey, Rolex, you see anything?"

Rolex responded instantly, "I got a flight of those new Mexican Super Cougars. Mexican Air Force signatures. What the hell're they doing in our airspace?"

Captain Ross "Chips" Greenwood chimed in, "Hey, they're in fuckin' Tucson, and we've been cleared hot on anything un-American. Don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure that out. I'm rolling to engage. Rolex?"

"Fine, I'm with you, you crazy jarhead. Tally!"

Grimacing, Chrome turned to looked back at Buck. His CSO shrugged, shaking his head. Undecided. He then cocked his head.

"Contact! Holy-bank right now!" he yelled.

Chrome reacted instantly, yanking on the stick. They swung violently to the right, rolling over as a stream of tracers passed right where they had been a second ago. Big tracers. Anti-aircraft tracers. And the day had started so well. He followed the stream back to its source. Spotted.

Growling, he called up Home Plate. "Home Plate, be aware, enemy forces have anti-aircraft capability."

"Home Plate copies, Chrome. We'll spread the alert."

He turned back to his CSO. "Buck, arm that second JAGM. Let's see how the conventional launch works out."

* * *

_Nogales, Mexico_

_0619 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

"Please tell me that isn't what I think it is…" Staff Sergeant Evan Dennison moaned quietly.

"'Fraid it is, Ghost," Captain Kerr Wilkerson said from next to him. He keyed the transmit button to talk to the rest of Echo Team. "Ghosts, do not open fire. Repeat, do _not_ open fire."

Bunkered down on a hillside under camouflage nets, Echo Team watched the procession of armed men and vehicles pass underneath them. They had counted well over a hundred trucks loaded with weapons and fighters. And then there was the matter of the tanks. Wilkerson raised his binoculars to his eyes again to double-check their find. Things were indeed not looking good. With a carefully-placed eye-blink, he brought up their link to the Pentagon's National Military Command Center. He _loved_ the Cross-Com upgrade.

"Juliet Tango, this is Ghost Lead. You've got a stable image?" he asked as soon as the window on his visor resolved into a clear image of an NMCC war room.

"Ghost Lead, Juliet Tango reads you loud and clear," the major sitting closest to the screen said. "What's the situation, Captain?"

"Practically on fire, sir," Wilkerson said, raising his binoculars to glass the convoy again. "Hundred-plus trucks, loaded with guns and shooters. And take a look at this…"

He keyed his helmet's camera function and craned his head so it could get a good shot of the tanks. Ducking back down, he transmitted it.

"We've counted four tanks so far. T-55s with Ecuadoran markings. Also counted approximately twenty AFVs. Mix-up with all sorts of colors. Looks like the party's here, sir."

The major leaned back and looked at several of the other officers in the war room with a sigh.

Taking the opportunity, Wilkerson slipped the valve of his hydration pack into his mouth and bit down on the valve to get a sip of water. His team had been choppered in a half hour ago, one of several Ghost teams being inserted into Mexico. He wasn't sure whether or not their insertion was wholly legal or not, but it wasn't his place to question his commanders' orders. Echo Team was supposed to establish an observation post in Nogales to get a lay of the land, as well as directing possible fire missions. A bit better than wading in and chewing on bullets with Alpha Team.

"Do not engage, Ghost Lead," the major confirmed after a moment. "We have them on record now. Just observe and report for now."

"Understood, Juliet Tango. Ghost Lead out," Wilkerson said with a sigh before disconnecting. "Dennison, pass me one of the bars. Haven't had breakfast yet."

Master Sergeant Bruce Gilmour visibly started, his Cross-Com sub-display blinking. "Whoa! Ghost Lead, take a look at this…"

"What is it?" Wilkerson asked, accessing his subordinate's Cross-Com feed. His jaw went slack. "Ghost, please don't tell me that's the Geiger."

"It's not the Geiger, Ghost Lead."

"Thanks. You're an asshole, you know that?" Rolling his eyes, he reopened communications with the NMCC. "Juliet Tango, this is Ghost Lead. We may have a big glowing problem."

* * *

_El Paso, Texas_

_0618 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

"Gunner! HEAT! Technical at two o'clock! Range ninety! Fire!" Staff Sergeant Cory Halverson bellowed.

O.D. Bastard rang like a gong as its main gun was fired. Halverson watched the lead technical in the convoy meet the high-explosive anti-tank round head-on, and was vaguely surprised to see pieces fly away from the explosion. The two other M1A2s accompanying O.D. Bastard opened up as well, methodically taking apart the Mexican convoy with a mix of HEAT and sabot rounds. Not exactly an efficient kill, but it did wonders for the morale of their supporting infantry.

"Target obscured!"

Halverson adjusted his remote weapons station's controls slightly before pumping out a burst from the Mk 19. They stitched a trail of destruction among the advancing column, the mix of HEDP and HE tearing apart the thinly and hastily-armored technicals and the horribly exposed insurgent crunchies.

The three Abrams assigned to assist the infantry advance could have likely done the job by themselves. One Abrams would have been enough, but their commanders decided to err on the side of overkill. There was barely enough space to fit two side-by-side, so the third Abrams, one "Bunnicula" was left having to fire its rounds with barely an inch of clearance between the two lead tanks' turrets. As it was, the infantry they were supposed to be supporting had minimal wiggle room between the TUSK-armored hide of an Abrams and a hard place. Or the boutiques that seemed to sprout up like weeds. Halverson considered them similar enough.

"Commander, over on the right!" a voice identified as Sergeant Malcolm Gutierrez shouted over the Cross-Com. "We've got some insurgents bunkered up in the corner store!"

"We read you," Halverson said, swiveling the electronic periscope for a better look. "Okay, designate and we'll be on it in a moment."

Gutierrez or someone under his command obligingly lit up the building on the Cross-Com, placing a targeting marker over the storefront so it showed up on his tactical map as well. The wonders of the IWS. He slaved his two weapon stations to one screen and joystick. And what a joy it was. He could hear the M2HB and Mk 19 eating through their ammunition as he scribbled a line of rounds across the storefront he could see. Glass shattered and the brickwork came apart under the assault. Whoever had been firing from there either decided to die or relocate to somewhere that their guns couldn't reach them.

"Hey, got a runner with an RPG!" Blackwell shouted from his station, the M240B linked to his station chattering. "Never mind. Got him-"

An RPG detonated against the side of their turret, practically skipping off of the sloped armor. Score one for fine American engineering.

"You sure about that?" Halverson asked rhetorically as his ears rung. "Anyone see the shooter for that?"

"Two o'clock. Across the street," Blackwell supplied. "I'm on him."

They worked in relative silence as Katz rolled O.D. Bastard forward slowly enough to maintain a bead on suspected insurgent positions. There was barely enough room to maneuver their main gun into position, so they _had_ to use the comparatively smaller weapons. They still played merry hell with improvised fighting positions. The infantry flowed around the tanks to check on their results as well as clearing out buildings. Halverson's orders had included a particularly strict one about not knocking any buildings over. Command tended to be kill-joys.

Halverson flicked through the infantry's Cross-Com feeds as he tagged a running insurgent, the poor guy's soccer shirt blown apart by the burst of fifty-caliber slugs that also draped his guts out about five feet behind him. The crunchies were apparently having to time of their life even though they were technically on the defensive. All of the time and money that the Ryan administration had lavished on the armed forces was now paying off. Top-notch training went with top-notch equipment to make a top-notch fighting force. And that fighting force was driving back the waves of insurgents.

"Whoa! Got an armored vee! Looks like one of those Mexican Lynx 90s!" Katz shouted. "Just popped out, man."

"Got it," Halverson said, accessing his driver's feed. Anti-armor threat. That got priority for sure. "Gunner! Sabot! Lynx Niner-Zero at eleven o'clock! Range hundred! Fire!"

The turret was filled with noise again. He watched as a round designed to penetrate reactive armor impacted against the thin skin of the light reconnaissance vehicle. Ten millimeters of homogenous rolled steel did little to stop a depleted-uranium penetrator designed to punch through a minimum of fifteen millimeters at best. The occupants had a moment to scream before their ammunition cooked off. Flames and smoke engulfed the armored vehicle, obscuring the insignia of the Mexican Army.

"Cease fire! Target obscured!" Halverson shouted.

"Hey, dude, that thing had Mexican Army flashes," Blackwell said with a measure of worry. "Was that a righteous kill?"

Halverson stared straight ahead into his displays. "It was a kill," he confirmed blankly, not voicing his own thoughts as concerns. "If it was Mexican Army, they'd show up on our IWS systems. You remember the upgrades, right?"

Were they even Mexican? He reflected on this as he applied a blast of forty-millimeter grenades into a fourth-floor window of an office building. It wasn't like he was a linguist, or that he could even hear them from his seat inside O.D. Bastard. They died good, though. No time to worry anyway. They weren't going to kill themselves. He dropped an RPG-carrying insurgent with a fifty-caliber round to the side of his neck.

* * *

_Chula Vista, California_

_0630 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

"I could be kicking back with a Bud, assholes!" Lance Corporal Paul Stevens shouted, his M27 IAR chattering.

Sergeant Peter Stack managed a chuckle as he laid the hammer down on the insurgent position with the rest of his squad. The platoon had been deployed out along an Interstate 5 off-ramp, engaging an insurgent position in a trolley station. It looked like a station, but he couldn't be sure with a portion of the building blown away by artillery they'd called in. Not exactly smart to pull a danger-close fire-mission, but their IWS hardware made things much easier and things were not looking their best as it was.

Laughter was their best medicine as it was. The United States had been _invaded_. Even the beginning of the Ryan administration hadn't been as bad as this, and _that_ had seen a 747 crash into the Capitol Building accompanied by the Siberian campaign. Cracking bad jokes and quips was the only thing keeping some of his Marines from having outright breakdowns wondering about their families. He was lucky in that respect. Nobody to worry about or mourn his passing. It made things more…liberating for him.

His M8 was a reliable-enough weapon. He preferred the older M16s that were still in common issue with the Army. The Marines were finally given a priority upgrade, and they had to replace a tested warhorse with something that looked like a refugee from a science-fiction movie. It wasn't bad, but it felt weird in his hands. Maybe it was the fact that it used "Picatinny Combat Attachment Points" or whatever it was that "PCAP" stood for. It made him wish for the olden days about four years ago, back when they were still using rail-mounted accessories.

But as it as was, his M8 was fine with him. It certainly dropped insurgents good. He pulled the trigger to fire another burst of rounds at a Honda they had seen one of the insurgents hiding behind. The slugs stitched even more holes through the thin metal shell of the sub-compact car. Had he hit the guy? There was a sudden metallic crack followed by Steven's shout of frustration.

"Jam-up! God-fucking-damn it!"

Turning his head, he watched Team One's automatic rifleman drop the M27 and drag his M9A1 out of its holster to fire rather than clearing the jam. Another case of the commandant not knowing what to do with a surplus of money, the Infantry Automatic Rifle seemed like a bad idea to Stack when they had been first introduced back when he was a corporal. Thanks to its "revolutionary" design, the automatic rifleman had to carry more magazines, and the thing tended to foul up even more often than their old M249s. Procurement at its best.

He loaded a round into his M8's grenade launcher and sent it downrange at the car. It cleared enough distance for the warhead to arm and detonate against the forward right wheel well. That pushed the car up and back, threatening to flip it over as well. It also got the reaction from the insurgent that he wanted. The moment he saw the human shape bolt from cover, he had him dead in his sights. A stroke of the trigger later, the insurgent was just plain dead. Now they could return to trading fire with the crazies in the ruins of the station.

Pulling the empty casing of the grenade from his launcher, Stack loaded another high-explosive round and took aim at the closest source of fire. His shot landed short, detonating against the trolley rails to turn the metal into a twisted echo of itself as well as cratering the pavement. Collateral damage was supposed to be avoided according to orders. Screw them. If minimizing collateral damage meant sacrificing his Marines, they'd toss grenades left and right before considering wading into the shit themselves. Command's retardation seemed to grow in leaps and bounds every time he looked. What was next? Would they be ordered to charge in with their Ka-Bars and a hand tied behind their back?

New orders scrolled across his Cross-Com visor. Advance and take the station, signed by Lieutenant Jeff Waters. Wonderful. A quick check revealed a near-depleted magazine for his M8. Replacing it, he shoved the near-empty into his dump pouch before palming an M18 smoke grenade from his Modular Tactical Vest. Lead by example, they said…

"Okay, listen up, squad!" he shouted to his squad. "We're going to advance and take the station and hold until reinforced! Team One with me! Teams Two and Three supply fire while Team One advances! Pop smoke on my signal and follow me!"

He looked around at Team One. His responsibility. But then again they all were. His duty and his responsibility. No shirking it. He pulled the pin and threw it between the bushes that separated the off-ramp from the station and its rails. It ignited after a few seconds with an audible pop, spraying milky red smoke that rapidly obscured the insurgent's field of vision. But not the Marines. Not with a live link with UAV surveillance and satellite imagery that was rapidly collated to provide a layout and path to follow to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible with icons indicating enemy movements.

Three more cylindrical grenades sailed out to add to the miasma of screening smoke. Taking a breath, Stack nodded to Team One. Breaking from cover, they dashed forward into the smoke.

"Bounding!"

Time slowed for him as he ran for the cover of the smoke. They crossed the paved trolley tracks in a dead run. The insurgents were still putting up steady fire, but it was lessened by the suppressive fire Teams Two and Three putting up barely feet away from each Marine of Team One as they dashed for cover in the smoke. Practically running into the side of a white van, he looked around in the smoke. The insurgents were blinded by the smoke, but Stack and his men were less so.

The IWS had already identified and tagged insurgents with the streaming footage from their eye in the sky in conjunction with ground observers like the Marines of the Seventh Marine Regiment. Orange-red diamond-shaped icons highlighted their positions for Stack and Team One as they waited in the eye-stinging smoke. Leaning around the hood of the van, he lined up a shot with one of the icons at roughly head-height.

"Light 'em up!" he shouted, opening fire. "Team Two, go!"

"Bounding!"

He heard and felt Team One open up next to him. Three M8s and Stevens' M9 firing as one, the fireteam picked individual targets and laid down withering suppression fire. Their fire wasn't absolutely aimed, but rather to make sure their targets kept their heads down and their weapons unfired. All so much better for the rest of the squad to advance.

PFC George Cale hissed as the lone brave insurgent's own un-aimed fire landed him with a slug in his main trauma plate. He continued firing, his carbine set to semi-automatic fire. Weighed down by the spare magazines for Stevens and his IAR, he had one of the heavier loads of the team. Unlike Stack's opinion, Cale rather liked the IAR. The interchangeability was a nice touch even if it limited their ammo. Now if only he didn't have to carry half of the spare mags, things would be perfect.

Stack pumped more rounds to keep the insurgents' heads down while Team Two got into position behind another car. Sooner than he thought, he was thoroughly empty. Dropping the magazine, he loaded a fresh magazine in and resumed his firing. This close, it was less un-aimed suppressive fire as it was just aimed at being close enough to keep the insurgents pinned. He fired another grenade into a cluster of enemy icons. It landed on the hood of the car that they were hiding behind, sending two of the insurgents flying and maiming and killing the other three. Cross-Com said there were still about sixteen more around the parking lot. Sixteen untrained jersey-wearing wannabe hardmen against thirteen Marines. He liked those odds.

"Team Three, go!" he bellowed.

"Bounding!"

Corporal Colin Ferris walked a line of fire onto another enemy marker through the smoke, either accidentally or "accidentally on-purpose" setting his M8 on rock and roll. Stack wasn't going to complain to Team Two's leader, seeing that the marker quickly disappeared once secondary sensors recognized a cessation of heartbeat. A quick check revealed that the smoke was dissipating and that Team Three was almost on top of them.

"Time to close the distance!" he bellowed over their fire. "Team Two, with me! Load 'em if you got 'em! One, Three, pin the fuckers!"

He slid an M576 buckshot shell into his launcher and waited for a lull in the fire. When it invariably happened, he stood and took aim even as he slid around the van and advanced on the parking lot. He saw his Marines do the same even as the other two fireteams opened up. He led the advance as usual, keeping it slow and smooth. No point in taking risks about this. He fired a double-tap to take one of the exposed insurgents down, one landing on his vest and the other through his shoulder. Close enough of a grouping, really. It certainly dropped him to the asphalt. Wimp.

Stack slid to a knee behind the relative safety of a Texas barrier and raised his rifle to snap off another string of shots. He was suddenly aware of one of the victims of their suppressive fire. Kid about twenty at best. He had caught a few slugs in his chest and gut and one in his skinny left bicep that had all but severed it. Gasping and gurgling, he reached out with his good hand, his eyes pleading. What the hell did _he_ want? Stack turned his M8 and delivered a double tap that blew out the back of the kid's skull.

"Two is in position! One, up and at 'em!" he bellowed the moment he saw Team Two's icons slide into safe positions. "Two, let's crank it up!"

His voice was already getting hoarse from the shouting to be heard over the gunfire. Popping up, he resumed firing on where the IWS had located targets. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Team One advanced under the watchful suppressive fire of the other two teams of the squad. This would have been so much easier if they had armor support…

"Whoa! Grenades!"

A second after that warning from Ferris, Stack both felt and heard a sizeable detonation close by his position. They had grenades? Of _course_ they had grenades. It had too strong of a report to be an M67…

"What're you waiting for?" Stack shouted. "Return the fucking favor!"

"Frag out!" PFC Provencia shouted from his position close to Stack's barrier. His M67 detonated a few seconds later, accompanied by the disappearance of a few enemy icons accompanied by cut-off shrieks.

"Team One is in position!" Corporal Billy Trey shouted. "Laying down some fire!"

The smoke had largely dissipated by then thanks to the strong morning breeze. Just as well. They were pretty much in an ideal position to clear the parking lot and then the station. Another quick check of his map showed a nice obliging layout on the part of the insurgents. This would flow easily. Unfortunately, while they had a good angle, the insurgents did too. Despite all of their suppressive fire, or perhaps because of it, Stack found himself under heavy fire. He could hear the bullets chewing into the barricade.

"Team Three, move up!"

It was strange in a way, Stack supposed. The American military was perfect for rolling into a country and pacifying the fuck out of any resistance. Back home? Not so much. Their orders had shifted from meeting the wave of invaders from south of the border head on and driving them back. Now it was just to tie up as many of the insurgents as humanly possible. A chirp in his earpiece notified him that their fire support elements were ready for new coordinates. Just in time. He increased the size of the tactical map on his visor to get a better view of the target area. There. Optimum clusterfuck of insurgents. He opened the tab to access a channel with a nearby AH-1Z, callsign Roughrider.

"Roughrider, this is Anarchy Three-Two, requesting fire mission on following," he shouted.

He peeked around the barricade and brought his helmet-mounted designator online. Laying the reticule over the cluster of insurgents, he locked the coordinates in to be transmitted a second later.

"Anarchy Three-Two, this is Roughrider. We have received coordinates and are en route. Uh, warning, this'll be _well_ under a hundred meters, Anarchy."

He snarled as a bullet came close enough to slice open his helmet cover. "Roughrider, I'm well aware that this is danger close! Just do it!"

"Understood, Anarchy. Rolling in now. Heads down."

"Everyone down! We've got air!" he bellowed.

Curling up at the sound of the helicopter's rotors, Stack reopened his tactical map to get a view of what was happening. Peeking wasn't forbidden, but rockets tended to throw up all sorts of head-removing shrapnel when striking cars. The AH-1Z SuperCobra swung in low with its nose gun and rocket pods firing. He could see human shapes from the bird's eye view of his map stumble and collapse into pieces as a mix of high explosive and armor-piercing shells tore into them.

High-explosive rockets blasted apart the parked cars that the insurgents had been using as cover, driving them out into the open for the M197 Gatling and several antipersonnel flechette rocket payloads. Very effective, but not particularly the cleanest method of clearing out a nest.

The bombardment lasted for thirty seconds as the AH-1Z's gunner walking his tracers around the area to tag fleeing insurgents. They made it look easy as they thinned out the herd. Picking up altitude, the AH-1Z volleyed off the last of its rockets before its nose tipped back up. Stack picked himself up to make a visual confirmation of the kills, and almost regretted it. What pavement was intact was practically coated with a layer of gristle and pulverized meat that was turning into a grayish muck from the settling dust.

"Good effect on target," he said. "Pleasure working with you, Roughrider."

The pilot responded, "We are RTB to rearm and reload, Anarchy. Good luck, boys. Roughrider out."

He watched the AH-1Z loop out beyond the fields to their west while his map showed two live insurgents crawling through the flames. They didn't look armed. His squad was all accounted for, their IWS sensors reporting no injuries. The air was still.

"Okay, move up," he called, coughing into his glove. Shouting had really taken a toll on his throat. "Christeson, Stafford, collect the two live ones. Secure 'em and see to their wounds. Everyone else, sweep the damn parking lot for-"

Something slammed into his upper chest, cutting him off. It felt like someone had driven a sharpened piece of rebar into him. Stumbling, he sat down heavily behind the cover of the barrier. His chest had stopped hurting. Fumbling with gloved hands, he probed his MTV where he had felt the impact. There. He felt the hard edge of a shattered Enhanced Small Arms Protective Insert cutting against the Cordura of his vest. Had something penetrated? _What_ could have penetrated? The pain of impact was slowly giving way to a burning sensation.

"Uh, I'm down," he said numbly. "Looks like something got through my vest." His glove came away bloody. "Okay, yeah. I'm hit."

"Sergeant Stack's down!" Trey called. "Doc! We got a man hit!"

* * *

_El Paso, Texas_

_0631 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

Working with armor was great. Specialist Dunn walked with his fireteam along the sidewalk as the Abrams rolled along down the street, and what a nice street it was. Someone had painted "Amorrachius" on the barrel of the main gun along with a surprisingly intricate tangle of thorned vines. Those _had_ to be against regulations. The neighborhood seemed like more of the same. Standardized houses with standardized families living standardized lives. It sounded like a nice place to move to once he got out of the Army.

"Heads up, got some movement on Warfighter," Lieutenant Phelps called over the radio. "Remember the ROE."

Dunn rolled his eyes, looking over at Cobb. "Don't shoot if they don't look armed," he said to him in a falsetto. "Fucking Ivy League frat house officers. Leaving the goddamn Humvees behind…"

"I hear you," Cobb said, nodding. "But hey, better Phelps than Taber."

"God, yes."

Staff Sergeant Logan's voice floated back to them. "That isn't criticism of our platoon commander that I'm hearing, is it?"

"No Sarn't," Cobb said. "We were merely observing the duality of-Contact right!"

He heard Cobb's M16 fire twice. It was met with fire coming from practically every gap between the houses on their right side. Dropping to the asphalt, Dunn raised his rifle to track the muzzle flashes. He quickly came to the number of far too many. Time to even out the odds a little. He could hear the Abrams's turret traversing even as its machine guns and grenade launcher opened up. Whoever was controlling the remote stations was doing a hell of a job. He watched as short bursts of high-caliber rounds passed just barely between houses to hit insurgent positions. The Mk 19 rattled out strings of shells to handle the closer and less-precise work. And then…

"Brace!"

His world turned into a giant church bell made of fire as the tank's main gun fired. The 120mm gun turned day into even brighter day, its muzzle flash lancing out at its target and the report was utterly deafening. Its shot had torn open the side of a house, and nice one too. The M1028 canister practically gutted the house, its payload of tungsten balls blasting clear through to gut the house behind the target as well. The fighters inside would have had a moment to scream before their world collapsed on them, their bodies reduced to loose parts in the blink of an eye. But miraculously enough there were survivors. Not for long.

Dunn tracked a survivor and dropped him with a shot. His fireteam fired as well, cutting stragglers down with fifty-caliber accompaniment from the Abrams's coaxial gun.

His Cross-Com flashed with new orders. Orders from up top. Really up top. Heavy incoming forces. Pull back north, hole up, and wait for reinforcements. Things weren't that bad yet, were it? Couldn't a whole division hold a city from invaders? Evidently not. New waypoints lit up his map showing a position well over a mile away in territory they had already cleared. Talk about ceding serious gains.

"Okay, peel back and use the Abrams as cover!" Logan shouted almost immediately.

"Dude, what the fuck?" Private Rob George asked next to him, his SAW chattering suppressive bursts so the rest of the squad could fall back in neat order. "Is my Cross-Com busted or did the Pentagon send a fucking retreat order?"

"That's what I heard," Dunn said, slapping off some rounds before backpedaling. "Okay, peeling!"

For a retreat, they seemed to be dealing even more damage than they had when on the attack. Dunn could see the swarms of insurgents swarming out of the woodwork in front of them. But they emerged just in time to be cut down en masse by the retreating soldiers' weapons. The tank fired twice more as it rolled back, both canister shells. Those tore through the front ranks, each tungsten ball retaining enough kinetic energy to leave a long path of bodies behind it. It was a wholesale slaughter, new insurgents stepping over the dismembered parts of their late comrades just in time to be taken down by a hail of bullets and tungsten sub-munitions.

The infantrymen backed away, weapons flaring despite their official retreat. Falling back by the numbers, each fireteam performed a center peel on their side of the Abrams. Dunn watched from his new position as the street in front of them filled with even more insurgents. There were times like this where the map wasn't needed to tell them they were going to be utterly fucked if they didn't do this right.

His bolt cycled dry.

"Loading!" Dunn shouted.

* * *

_National Military Control Center, Washington D.C._

_0629 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

"Call them back."

Major Thomas Clancy looked up at his immediate superior hovering over his shoulder. Major General Mark Hill didn't seem like the sort of make stupid choices.

"Sir?" he asked hesitantly.

"You heard me, Major, pull your forces back and hedgehog them. The same goes for the rest of you."

"Yes sir," Clancy said, lowering his head back to his display and setting to work.

His actions were mimicked by all of the other staff officers seated in one of the quieter and newer war rooms of the NMCC. The men and women at the displays were captains and majors, all of them combat veterans. Some of them wished they were back in the field, but others knew they would do the most good off it. They were the nerve center of the United States of America's armed forces. The generals and admirals would make the decisions, but it fell upon these men and women of the Joint Strike Command to coordinate and put their decisions into effect. There was good reason some of the officers referred to them as the Hive.

To assist them, they had the best command and control systems that money and some arm-wringing could obtain. Without them, the Integrated Warfighter System would be a directionless trillion dollar investment by the Durling administration. Their computers provided a direct link to a dozen unit commanders at a time at each console. Clancy himself was responsible for the fire support and infantry assets of the First Armored Division in Texas.

He overrode the Cross-Coms of the Third Infantry Combat Brigade Team and began issuing blanket orders for the six battalions of the Bulldogs to withdraw north and establish strong points when possible. Every infantryman and assorted grunt would find a new set of orders scrolling across their screens right then. He'd be going over the heads of the battalion and company commanders, but orders were orders. Besides, while they were in the Hive, all of the battlefield controllers held the simulated rank of brigadier generals for expressly that purpose.

The system noted several inquiries from field commanders about these orders, but at least the whole "hundreds of voices speaking at once over the radio" was only seen in the movies. What they had instead was just a much higher-capacity computerized switchboard. Clancy could hear his fellow coordinators talking quietly into their headsets. Time to make the cakes.

A few taps of his stylus on the screens displaying live satellite footage collated with IWS information redeployed the Bulldogs to roll back to Biggs Air Field with orders to establish a defensive perimeter. Another tap brought up artillery support. That would be saturating their previous defensive zones in exactly three minutes. More than enough time to get out of the kill zone of a bombardment of 155mm howitzer shells.

With general orders established, he could get to the meat of the deals.

"This is Major Clancy, Joint Strike, what can I do for you, Captain Petrelli?" he asked after linking through to one of the commanders calling him. His hands flew to find the sender's position on his maps. Forty-first Infantry, First Battalion, Second Company. Middle of El Paso, and still close to Fort Bliss. Good enough.

"Clancy, what the hell are these orders I'm receiving?" the captain shouted, gunfire audible in the background. "Retreat?"

"That is affirmative, Hero," he said after a moment to check the callsign and another to redirect the forces. "You are to fall back to Fort Bliss and assist in establishing a strongpoint."

"Any reason why, Joint Strike?" Petrelli asked.

Clancy shook his head and looked back at Hill who only crossed his arms. "Cannot say at this time, Hero. You received the orders?"

"That's affirmative," the captain said after a long pause. "Hero out. Thanks a bunch."

He tried to ignore the acidity of the parting shot. "It's what we're here for, Hero." Pulling one of the prototype ATL planes online, he brought it in to high orbit over El Paso and added it to the palette of support options. That done, he pulled his headset off and looked over at Hill. "Sir, all due respect, but what the _fuck_ are you doing? Our units are reporting a damn good percentage of territorial gains with minimal casualties."

"Check your tone, Clancy," the general said in the sudden silence. "I've got my reasons. So do the insurgents."

"And what would that be, _sir_?"

"Our reconnaissance units are reporting heavy radiological warnings all along the major breach points," Hill said. "We keep pushing them, the insurgents might get a little itchy-fingered."

"A _nuke_?" Captain Roger Wells asked loudly. "They have a goddamn _nuke_?"

"Plural," Major Tony Scalzi said, leaning back in his station and rubbing his eyes. "We're fucked."

* * *

Author's Notes: Another day, another chapter. I should really be working on my courseload... As a note, the time is aligned to UTC, not to specific time zones. I know, I know, what is a justification like that doing in this kind of a fic?


	4. Chapter 3: Encroachment

"We're surrounded. That simplifies our problem of getting to these bastards and killing them."

-Lieutenant General Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller

* * *

_Cuidad Juarez, Mexico_

_0641 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

This was…unnecessary.

Colonel Raul Jimenez waved his men forward through the industrial jungle. The new industrial areas of the city were rapidly becoming slums. And slums made for excellent ambush points. Well-to-do locations did too, but slums put people on edge. And sometimes that edge was too sharp. They'd fire at shadows that hid no hostile but perhaps a civilian caught in the crossfire. Kill one and the populace would turn against the already-unstable government.

But it wasn't like they hadn't been doing their best already. Jimenez could hear the distant thunder of mortar and artillery fire. Whether it was friendly or not didn't matter to him as long as it wasn't close by. Unlike him, most other officers swore that fire missions were the best way to clean out an infestation of _resorteras_, slingshots. The derogatory name was no carryover from the insurrection of the previous year. Brother had fought brother a year before, and to consider the other to be a child's toy was insulting. And artillery was hardly a laughing matter to be thrown around in an urban environment. Not when it was friendly territory they were doing it on, either.

At least it _had_ been friendly territory. He had a feeling that the area's "alignment" was up for grabs at the moment. His M4A1's muzzle swung between windows and alleys as he searched for movement. The second-hand Integrated Warfighter System that the Americans had sent them worked wonders despite being a generation behind what the Americans were using. He could access his teams' "eyes" in addition to getting a much better view of the battlefield thanks to the map and its display of friendly units' locations.

But that wasn't much use right then and there. He knew where his men were and where they were going to be. It was a matter of finding where the _resorteras_ were. And that was driving him insane. There were intermittent contacts with his sweep teams as they worked their search pattern through the southern blocks. A sniper might pop his head out and take a potshot and scurry away before his men could return fire. This was no way for a war to be fought. Not for the men of the "Halcon" Rapid Intervention Force group of the Mexican Army's Third Special Forces Brigade.

"_Coronel_," Second Sergeant Antonio Rivera said quietly over the Cross-Com. "We may have a problem. A big one."

"How big?" Jimenez asked, his fist coming up even as he issued orders for a freeze. "You know I'm picky about the size of my problems."

"How about tank sized?"

Colonel Raul Jimenez then said something that would have made his late carpenter father blush like a schoolgirl. A string of somethings, actually.

* * *

_National Military Control Center, Washington D.C._

_0632 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

General Joshua Keating liked watching a plan come together. He chewed on his unlit cigar with his eyes riveted to one of the large screens of the war room. It was live footage of his premier Ghost Team about to shut down a rebel artillery position, collated from footage from four Cypher IIIs and an RQ-4K Hunter-Killer loitering in the area. Forward-looking infrared cameras, shape-recognition software, and old-fashioned image intensification came together to give him and his warriors a full spectrum of options to find and kill their targets. As it was, he preferred to stay quiet and leave it to the operators. He hadn't liked it when he was in the field, and he doubted that they liked it from him now.

He watched he team leader, Captain Scott Mitchell, handle the takedown orders. Several markers sprang up where he had designated waypoints for his miniscule four-man team. Alpha had traditionally been a high-speed deep-penetrating unit, and only the best and brightest of the Ghosts were assigned. But quantity still had a quality of its own in the special operations community.

"All Ghosts in position."

"Execute, _now_."

There were four muted flashes on the FLIR monitor. Suppressed gunfire. Four red diamond markers blinked out on the map. Clean. One of the UAV pilots brought her Cypher in low to check. The four blue markers showing the Ghosts' positions moved from their previous positions and worked their way toward the last concentration of still-living rebels. While taking some of them alive would be nice, the Ghosts were operating on kill orders. Time to adjust it a little.

"Give me comms with Mitchell," Keating said to one of the technicians. He nodded at the thumbs up and spoke into his headset. "Ghost Lead, identify and capture the leader for interrogation if possible. But don't go throwing your assets into the wind, hear? We aren't _that_ desperate for information."

"Ghost Lead copies, General. We'll try our best to bring you a souvenir."

He chuckled. "Good to hear, Ghost. Out."

He watched silently as the captain moved his team into position. It was strange to watch footage from a few hundred feet in the air of a Special Forces unit taking down a camp. Maybe it was because he was an old-fashioned sort of guy. With the new IWS upgrades, it was possible to watch a team operate live. Unfortunately it also meant that if they screwed up, they were going to have to watch the team pay the piper. He missed the old impersonality of non-visual radio communications.

"General, Hotel reports successful operation," one of the technicians reported. "They are RTB."

"Good."

That was one more problem out of the way. There were still plenty more, but one of the issues in Colombia was now a non-issue. He'd see to the interrogation personally. He left Mitchell's operation in the capable hands of the operations officer in charge of that particular tangent of Ghost operations. There were other things that needed his attention.

"Sir, Charlie and Romeo are reporting massive enemy contacts. Requesting support."

"I feel like fast-movers," he announced to the room at large while watching Alpha Team take down the last stragglers. "Someone rummage up some SOUTHCOM assets to assist Romeo and Charlie. And I'm headed over to the Hive. I think General Hill needs some leaning-on."

* * *

_Laredo, Texas_

_0605 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

Ernesto Madrazo was a survivor. A member of the now defunct Aguila special forces unit, he had been unceremoniously tossed out of the Army for his role in the insurrection despite being only a foot soldier. Then again, an Aguila operator was hardly _only_ a foot soldier. Time to prove it.

It was unsettling to see that the Americans hadn't learned anything from the insurrection. Even though he was still against the standing government, it pained him to see them acting like this. But they were the enemy. And let it not be said that an Aguila soldier would turn away perfectly good prey. He sighted-down his PS90 before firing a short burst. The National Guardsmen reacted slowly to the signal. Their loss.

His cell rose up from behind the cars and trucks they were using as cover to open fire. It was too easy. They had picked up FJP-confiscated weapons on their way over the border. With the armor-piercing ammunition taken from the state armories, the submachine guns were an unholy terror against armored foes. He watched his six-man unit work, undisciplined but still effective. Discipline was not particularly necessary when ambushing a squad of American weekend warriors on a narrow street where they were hemmed in by the cars and some creatively-created debris. And the 5.7x28mm worked like a dream.

"Cease fire," he shouted, raising a fist. "Cease fire!"

And there they lay. Nine _gringos_, dead in pools of their own blood. It seemed miraculous to Madrazo upon review that none of his cell had been shot in the ambush. Several of the idiots had circled around in attempt at catching them in a cross-fire, and had been shooting essentially at _each other_. Damned cartel troops. He couldn't even get an in with the detachment of Zetas who had been employed for this great working. Shaking his head, he looked at his troops. He hadn't even learned their names yet. Probably wouldn't need to either.

The idiots he had been saddled with were playing at being hard men. There were possibly one or two of them who had actual experience with something other than holding old grandmothers up or kidnapping American teenagers. The rest of them were idiots. Complete and utter idiots. He'd spent a better part of the previous month trying to drill trigger discipline into them, but he had the hinting suspicion that they were probably picking their noses with the muzzles of their Glocks when he wasn't looking. Idiots.

"Let's go," he said. "Strip whatever equipment you can off of the bodies. Leave the rest for the vultures."

The vests that the Guardsmen wore were completely unusable, the armor-piercing fire having turned the ceramic plates practically into sieves. What intact equipment remained was stripped, though. Grenades, canteens, magazines, and whatever else they could possibly use. Their M16s were taken as well. He'd seen the Americans and their advanced electronics suites. Those would have been useful if they hadn't riddled those with bullets in the process of taking them down. But the weaponry was still useful. He grabbed one of their Berettas and left the rest.

"Put that down," he said, looking at one of his men who had managed to find a wallet. "Leave it."

The kid looked at him. "But he-"

Madrazo cut him off. "There's a thing called the chain of command, remember? The chain I use to beat you until you remember who the fuck is in charge? That one? _Leave it_. We're not here to steal."

Shaking his head, he waved for the others to form up. Idiots.

* * *

_National Military Control Center, Washington D.C._

_0639 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

"What the flying _fuck_ are you doing, Hill?"

General Keating's words were loud and vehement enough to distract all of the Hive's operators. Major Clancy leaned back in his seat slightly to listen in while he coordinated between cavalry elements in western El Paso. JSOC had their own controllers and rarely worked with the Hive so this spat had to be interesting. He slid a marker to bring a platoon forward to provide security for the evacuating civilians.

"Radiologicals, Keating," General Hill said flatly. "You know the policy just as well as I do. Shouldn't you be more concerned about your special forces teams?"

"Dammit, Mark," Keating growled. "We're trying to drive these people back! Why the hell are you giving up ground? They have nukes? Hit them before they can set it off!"

Strictly speaking, they could do that. The likely nukes had been marked off with tags of their own on Clancy's screens. Orders were to avoid sending troops into the area, but he did have reserve mobile assets available if the standing orders were rescinded.

"They're not on American soil yet," Hill said. "We are not going to give them a reason to use them. And there have been minimal advances by the forces along the border."

"But what if you're giving them a chance to mass their forces?" Keating asked. "You're taking an unnecessary risk with this."

"Force appropriate response," Hill said curtly. "And I would hardly believe that you don't have one of your teams in the area that could perform an interdiction. Now I believe you're needed back at JSOC."

* * *

_Fort Bliss, Texas_

_0709 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

"So why're we doing this again?"

"Shut up and keep shoveling."

Sergeant Bart West shoveled another mound of dirt into the waiting Hesco. Who'd have thought they'd be deployed on American soil for something other than flood control? His platoon had been assigned to fortifying the southern walls of Fort Bliss and had been doing so for over half an hour. Even with the assistance of the motor pool's earthmovers, it was backbreaking work. Each Hesco barrier was usually filled by backhoe, but given the time constraints they had picked up shovels and started to help out.

Nobody knew why they had been pulled back, but everyone had a theory. The most popular one that West supported was "The Pentagon are a bunch of idiots." He saw no other explanation for the withdrawal. But orders were orders. So there they were doing the work of machines in an attempt to shore up their base's defenses. Getting posted to handle the southern edge of the base was just plain suicidal with it being the most likely point of penetration. If they didn't finish the fortifications in time, they were going to get a nice lesson in being overrun.

They moved on to the next barrier the moment the backhoe finished loading the previous one. It wasn't that hot yet, though. In about an hour, the sun would be high in the sky and they would be in a world of hurt much like some of the retreating soldiers were already in. They could hear the sounds of gunfire and explosions not too distant.

"If I see one more fuckin' bag a' dirt…" PFC Wallace Gray grumbled as he stepped back to make room for the backhoe. "I didn't sign up to deal with this shit."

"Too bad for you," West said, adjusting his M4A1 on its sling. Damn three-point kept getting caught up on his IOTV. "You're here, and we're dealing with a whole _load_ of dirt."

"Thanks a lot, _sir_."

The sounds of fighting drew closer. They had been ordered to keep their vests and weapons ready despite the work they were doing. No catching them with their proverbial pants down even if more than a few of them were ready to pass out from dehydration or heat stroke. Reminded of that, he took another sip from his hydration pack. It was already warm. It would probably be scalding later. Back to wor-

A bullet hissed right past his head, tearing through the half-filled Hesco.

"Contact! Infantry to the south!"

In full battle rattle, West had already lowered his IWS visor down over his eyes before ducking down behind the Hescos. No time for his ballistic goggles. The map showed massed movements of unfriendlies converging on the southern walls. There had to be a hundred at least. But that was why they brought along some friends.

* * *

_National Military Command Center, Washington D.C._

_0711 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

"Sir, 13 Cav, First Squadron reports contacts all along Fort Bliss's perimeter," Major Clancy reported. "Their armor has been engaged."

* * *

_Fort Bliss, Texas_

_0710 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

"We are in contact," Sergeant West heard Lieutenant Pulley scream over the command frequency. He didn't blame him for the panic in his voice. He was close to shitting his pants himself.

They had called in the light armor support held in reserve to hold their position. Ordinarily, First Squadron, Thirteenth Cavalry Regiment had a full complement of M2 Bradleys for each platoon. Unfortunately, a quarter of them had been cycled out for maintenance. Half of what remained had been sent out as support for the Marines. That left roughly two dozen Infantry Fighting Vehicles to support the defensive line.

That didn't mean that they were ineffective, though.

West could hear the Bradleys firing short controlled bursts from their M242 Bushmasters. The gunners knew what they were handling. Even as the insurgents starting poking their heads out of the woodwork, their high-explosive twenty-five millimeter shells took them off even as automatic fire raked the Hesco barriers along the perimeter.

The only things separating the boys of the 13th Cavalry Regiment from the oncoming tide were a strip of suburban housing and their hastily-constructed perimeter behind the fence. This was looking more and more unpleasant by the second. Their Cross-Coms showed satellite footage as well as the gun-camera footage from the Brads. Hundreds of individual contacts passing through the pre-established initial phase line.

Gradually the ear-splitting fire of the Bradleys' autocannons dropped off as the initial rush of insurgents was completely wiped out. Risking a peek with his old Mark I eyeball, West picked himself up off the dusty ground. Out beyond the now slightly ragged chain-link fence were a several dozen bodies strewn in a proverbial no man's land. The now former insurgents had met the fire head on and had paid dearly for it. Bodies and parts of bodies were laying around in already-muddying pools of blood and gore. That didn't seem to be stopping the others from continuing their assault, though.

"Everyone okay?" West shouted to his fireteam.

PFC Gray responded first. "I'm fighting-fit, sarn't."

"Good to go," Specialist Tom Ogleby said as he propped the forearm of his M249 SAW on the lip of a Hesco.

"You know me," PFC Charlie Manson said.

"That's what I like to hear," West said, grinning. "Now let's see about killing us some motherfuckers." He turned over to talk to Staff Sergeant David Stark. "We're all green here, Sarge."

"Good," Stark said from his position with Team One. "We've got our orders. Hold, hold, hold. Fire on my command."

"Got it, Sarge." West nodded to himself, watching the line. "We're a go."

The insurgents were closing in on the rifle-engagement phase line. West raised his own M4 and aimed down the basic iron-sights. He'd given his issued optics to Manson and his full-length M16. Licking his peeling lips, he checked his Cross-Com with an eye-blink to check the advance of the insurgents while correlating with the camera mounted on his carbine. Close enough by his account.

"Sarge, should we light them up?" he asked Stark.

"Wait for it…" the staff sergeant said. "Okay, SAWs first, then forties, then everything else. On my command. Copy?" he shouted down the line.

"Copies" echoed down the line.

"Wait for it…"

The insurgents were drawing closer.

"Hold…"

West could make out their eye-searing clothing through the dust.

"Hold…"

He could see their weapons.

"Hold…"

Their running feet sounded like an oncoming storm.

"Hold…"

He adjusted his point of aim to follow the closest insurgent. His finger itched to apply that pressure and fire off a round.

And then it came.

"Fire, fire, fire!"

Their squad automatic weapons chattered controlled bursts that zigzagged through the ranks of the insurgents. West could see dozens of them fall, screaming and clutching at the ragged holes that had been torn through them. Some of them wore body armor. Commercial stuff that could stop a few rounds. Others hadn't worn armor. Those poor schmucks had their bellies laid open like gutted pigs. Barely-visible tracers gave a general idea of where the bullets were falling, also occasionally igniting clothing.

If they had thought that was bad, the second stage of the wall of lead was even worse. Their platoon's grenadiers fired as one, their M320s launching high-explosive shells to arc through the air and land in the advancing horde's midst. West could see the occasional insurgent turn into vapor when they were hit directly by a forty-millimeter shell. Others weren't so lucky. There were splashes of red, limbs and other body parts flying into the air from insurgents who hadn't been caught in the entirety of the blast. Screams filled the air along with the _crack_ of the shells detonating. And by the time the first volley had landed, the grenadiers had already reloaded their launchers and were prepared to fire again.

"Light them up! Light them up!" Stark screamed, his voice hoarse as he fired his own weapon.

There was the order. The other three squad leaders were issuing the same orders down the line. West's finger curled and he felt recoil press the stock of his carbine against his IOTV. Downrange, he saw an insurgent stumble but not fall. So he squeezed the trigger a few more times. The guy stumbled, pink mist puffing out of his back as the rounds struck him. He went down.

The autocannons chattered over their heads, the gunners taking carefully-aimed shots to knock down the oncoming targets. West continued firing his M4, watching the tactical map in the corner of his eye. All unfriendly contacts were tagged with red markers for ease of picking out and shooting. The wonders of the IWS never ceased for him.

"I'm hit!" Ogleby shouted, stumbling back from his place at the Hescos. "Someone get on my SAW!"

"I'm on it!" Manson shouted, letting his M4 fall on its sling to grab the machine gun. "Medic! We got a man hit here!"

The targets started to blend together to him. Just as soon as he dropped one, another was immediately in his place. His bolt locked back. Acting on reflex, his index finger extended and pressed the magazine release in front of the trigger. His other hand grabbed one of his pouches' fresh magazines and loaded it just after the empty magazine cleared the well. Slapping the bolt release, he returned to firing, dropping another insurgent. He could do this all day.

* * *

_Laredo, Texas_

_0658 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

Whoever the fighter had been was no longer relevant. He'd fought the law and lost. Captain Omar Granger folded his arms and watched as his men performed a rapid rifle of the guy's clothing. The local SWAT team had managed to account for themselves pretty damn well. This one had caught a half-dozen slugs in his armor and one in the neck. He'd died before they could get the hole patched up. Granger supposed they would need to get someone with a heartbeat to satisfy the gods of the Pentagon.

"Well, _jefe_, our boy's not a very faithful Catholic," Staff Sergeant Billy Grimes said, lifting up a handful of condom to show him as well as a rosary. "You see all sorts around here, I guess."

"Does he have any ID on him?" Granger asked.

Staff Sergeant Malcolm Fitchner shook his head. "Damndest thing. He's all sterile on that part. Got a nice set of tats, though."

"Take some pics and send them home for processing," Granger said. "Then we'll see what we can do for the wonderful city of Laredo."

"Don't like Texas, sir?" Grimes asked with a grin while rifling through the corpse's wallet.

"I don't like _bullets_," Granger corrected him. "And Texans offend my liberal Bostonian upbringing. Now let's get a move on it. Bag the stuff and hand it over to the locals."

"You got it."

Picking at his polo shirt, Granger wished he was wearing something more substantial. But they weren't supposed to be there. Or at least Charlie Team wasn't supposed to be there officially. Then again, Charlie Team didn't exist. They were like ghosts.

But he hated dealing with feds. The FBI field office was nicely appointed, but that wasn't helping with the situation. Cities all along the southern border being attacked. It was like everything a conservative pundit feared and hoped for. A reason for better border security. After all, the Canadians were hardly going to be spilling over their border to spread the terror of poutine and strange vowels. But that was a worry for a different time. They had more pressing concerns. Like finding out what the hell was going on around these parts, and putting a stop to it.

His earpiece buzzed. They hadn't been issued a full Warfighter loadout for this mission, since they were supposed to be unobtrusive. That meant low-profile armor and weaponry. Up to a point. He missed having a full Cross-Com suite available to him.

"Go ahead," he said, tapping the side of the earpiece which had been disguised as a large Bluetooth earpiece.

General Keating's voice came on. "Ghost Lead, you have new marching orders. Take the FBI SWAT team and perform a sweep through the city. You are to look for any signs of radiologicals in the area. Locate and mark. Neutralize if possible."

"Understood, Baseplate. We're moving out." He glanced at his two men who were going over every inch of the corpse with digital cameras. "Roll it in. We've got retasked."

"Give me a few more seconds here, _jefe_," Fitchner said as he finished up. "Okay, so what're we looking at?"

"Simplest? Nukes," Granger said with a shrug. "Apparently these nutjobs got their hands on a few or something."

"Hey, wasn't Romeo tasked for that job in Panama?" Grimes asked. "Think there's a connection?"

"Won't know until we do a snatch on a live guy," Fitchner said. "If these kill-happy mike-foxtrots know how to shoot to wound."

Granger shook his head. "Either way, we need to gear up and go hunting with extreme prejudice, so fall in, Ghosts."

"Yes, sir, Captain Granger, sir."

"Grimes? Shut up."

"Shutting up, Ghost Lead."

* * *

_Cuidad Juarez, Mexico_

_0658 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

Whoever it was that was shooting at them, they were quite good. Just not good enough to actually hit someone. The fifty-caliber slug blew straight through the wall, spraying Colonel Jimenez and two of his operators with plaster. That had been a near-miss. The high-explosive shell that followed up wasn't. Jimenez felt a rush of heat and pressure followed by screaming as the man next to him went down with shards of glass stuck in his face, one of his eyes ruined by a needle-thin sliver.

"Get him clear!" he bellowed. "Get him clear!"

Sergeant Rivera dragged the wounded operator clear of the firing line before taking his place. There were dozens of targets but they had only so much ammunition so it was business as usual to count their shots and make them count. Holed up in an airport concourse, the Halcon team had barricaded themselves in for a long fight. The _resorteras_ would have to come in and dig them out with knives. It would cost the rebels men and time that Jimenez had a feeling they did not have.

But he was unsure how long they could hold on. Halcon teams traveled light, carrying little save weaponry and just enough spare ammunition for a few hours of fighting. They were burning through their magazines worryingly quickly even as they were putting down _resorteras_ with precision fire.

A squeeze of the M4's trigger dropped another rebel, the slug burrowing through an eye to reach the brain. There it yawed and caromed off of the surrounding skull before exiting from behind the now deceased rebel's left ear, taking much of the ear with it in a gout of blood and bone particles. Jimenez had already fired another round before the corpse hit the ground. These idiots were making up for training with numbers.

"Calaca! Forty, now!" he shouted while highlighting an enemy position.

"Firing!" Sergeant Ernesto Garcia responded, his underslung M203 coughing out a high-explosive shell.

The explosion tore one of the _resorteras_ apart entirely, his limbs falling away from a vaporized torso. Shrapnel from the forty-millimeter shell combined with the explosive force maimed and killed the others around the unfortunate, burning flesh and tearing at bone. Seven hostile signatures disappeared from his Cross-Com. Priming a grenade, Jimenez maintained a grip around the K413 fragmentation grenade's spoon to hold it against the taped-up body of the explosive. He pulled his Heckler & Koch USP out of its holster and held the muzzle and underslung IWS hardware around the corner of his cover. The display on his visor immediately displayed a shaky view from the IWS camera clipped to his pistol. He carefully adjusted the angle of his USP's muzzle to bring another close-by group of targets. Damned lack of satellite support. If they had it instead of static maps, this would have been much easier.

Locating a likely grouping, he flexed his throwing arm and reholstered his sidearm. He knew where they were, so it was just a matter of not completely screwing up and dropping the grenade. Leaning around to the other side of the pillar, he took and breath and slung the frag grenade out.

"Frag out!" he called to the others, using the English terminology they had picked up from the advisors.

Several of his men braced instinctively as the ovoid grenade left his hand. Jimenez tucked his chin into the neck protector of his body armor just as the grenade detonated. There were shrieks, and there were groans. Leaning around the edge, he fired again. He could feel an involuntary smile stretch across his face. It was the adrenaline. But it was mostly the easy pickings of the _resorteras_. He could do this all day.

"_Coronel_, the armor is getting awful close, sir," Rivera shouted next to him. "Our sensors just picked up two of them breaching your final line."

"Well then would someone get the fucking Bees?" Jimenez roared over the sound of his carbine firing at near-automatic speed as he fired into a crowd-up of the rebels. "I want a hunter team to take the out before they hit us! And I want someone to explain to these _resorteras_ what a 'clusterfuck' is!"

* * *

**Natick Soldier, Development, and Engineering Center Abstract: The Integrated Warfighter System**

Part of the issues facing soldiers in the battlefield is a lack of information awareness. For centuries, a soldier could only know so much about their environment, this being typically limited by line of sight and prior intelligence. The new Integrated Warfighter System (IWS) is a groundbreaking revolution in modern warfare. An individual soldier's IWS comprises of decades of research into turning the individual soldier into a complete warfighting unit rather than just a part of a whole. The current IWS itself is primarily an advanced C2 and communications unit, allowing a soldier access to integral tactical processing to provide needed information of the constantly-shifting battlefield.

However, the current iteration is not only limited to providing tactical insight to the soldiers on the ground. The IWS also provides their commanders with two vital systems. A physiological monitor subsystem woven into the uniform provides a commander with information on the well-being of their fighting men. Should a soldier become wounded or combat ineffective, the IWS would automatically notify local medical assets of the soldier's location. In addition to this, the IWS also contains an combat sensor suite that feeds detailed data back to unit commanders, collated from all of the unit's feeds.

The IWS is designed for maximum interoperability between services. A Marine infantryman will be able to communicate with an Army tank commander and request fire support without compatibility issues in terms of hardware or software. It should be noted that all special forces IWS come installed with command software.

* * *

Author's Notes: Another day, another chapter. Any and all commentary is welcome as usual.


	5. Chapter 4: Surrounded

"_Mon centre cède, ma droite recule, situation excellente, j'attaque._"

-Ferdinand Foch

* * *

_National Military Command Center, Washington D.C._

_0722 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

"Jesus, Clancy, c'mere and take a look at this," Major George Wilson said, bringing up one of his displays. "I'm counting fifty-plus foot-mobiles per wave."

"Getting the same here," Major Thomas Clancy said as he selected another subunit on his displays. "Hold your position," he said calmly to the voice in his ear. "Reinforcements are being scrambled, just hold on." He opened a window of his options on a side-screen, keying up the CO of the unit he selected. "Colonel, orders and coordinates are streaming now. National Guard unit needs assistance." He paused, rolling his eyes before moving on to another hotspot. "Yes, Colonel, we're a bunch of assholes. Absolutely, sir."

* * *

_El Paso, Texas_

_0722 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

"Turn around," Captain Neville Blackburn shouted over the whine of his Abrams's turbine. "We're needed elsewhere!"

He pulled over one of the IWS displays that surrounded his seat, this one showing live satellite telemetry. Tanks in urban environments were generally a sign of someone fucking up somewhere higher up in the chain of command. That being said, fighting on your own soil was a definite sign of someone fucking up higher up in the chain of command.

Driving east along Montana Avenue, Blackburn and his company had been engaging all comers. There was enough space to maneuver their main guns. But there was little need. The insurgents had come in with practically no proper armor. Even their anti-personnel rounds could tear the technicals apart. No challenge, but who wanted a challenge in war? It wasn't a game. He could see muzzle flashes as individual insurgents tried engaging his convoy. No dice for them with the general "engage if fired upon" orders the tankers had been given.

"Third Platoon, continue mission," he said, plotting out a route. "All other platoons form on me."

"Third Platoon copies," Lieutenant Nash Wilson said, his Abrams tanks breaking away. "Maintaining original heading."

* * *

_Laredo, Texas_

_0718 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

Captain Omar Granger looked around the near-silent street as the FBI SWAT team unloaded their vans. It would probably have been smarter to keep the vans for mobile cover, but there was no room to maneuver them in the increasingly congested roads. Granger had never seen so many cars lying dead on the streets as he did now. There were cases like the Highway of Death earlier in his career, but never anything like this.

Charlie Team had been understrength since the previous year's coup d'état attempt in Mexico City, losing four men in Nicaragua thanks to a BCIED or building-contained improvised explosive device while investigating the loss of the Guardrail device. With just the three of them, they had been benched for months while unit recruiters sorted through personnel files for replacements. Fate having a decidedly dry sense of humor and irony, they were supposed to receive two new operators today. Either way, the three men of Charlie Team had been left high and dry and without anyone to provide back-up when the call came in.

At least a number of the SWAT operators they were working with were former special forces. No need to retrain them, or waste time explaining particularly new concepts to them. They knew how to cover each others' backs. Dragging his own gear out, he pulled out the M416 carbine he'd drawn. Ghosts had previously been issued M8s and XM29s during the turn of the century, but a combination of reliability issues and logistical problems wound up leaving their XM29s on a dusty shelf somewhere and the M8s in the hands of the Marines. Bravo to them if they managed to work the kinks out of the rifles. Like the whole melting issue. He'd stick with the classics, thank you.

"Okay," he said, loading a magazine and pulling the charging handle back to chamber a round as he looked at the rest of the ad hoc unit. "I want one long-gunner, two carbs, and a sub-gunner with Sergeant Black," he pointed at Staff Sergeant Billy Grimes. "Three carbs and a long-gunner with Sergeant Tan," he pointed at Staff Sergeant Malcolm Fitchner. "Boss, and a long-gunner with me," he concluded.

The SWAT team sorted themselves out nicely into the teams. Grimes would be in charge of the close-quarters element, Fitchner supporting, while Granger himself would be leading the ranged element with the sixteen-inch barrel that he'd swapped in to replace the "standard" ten-inch that most Ghost operators favored. Admittedly, it still didn't really match up with the scoped full-size M16 rifles' ranges. But he did what he could where he could.

"Okay, Black and Tan, your Geigers ready?"

"We're good, _jefe_," Fitchner said as he performed a function check of his own carbine. "Clickin' and tickin'."

"Listen up," Granger said. "Remember to check what's under your sights before pulling the trigger, huh? There are going to be civilians running around. National Guard's been mobilized to help evacuate them, but it'll take some time. But we're not in the escort business. You meet a civilian, pat them down, give them some water, and point them north. We've got bigger fish to fry. Keep an eye on your Geiger counters as we move, it starts to spike, alert Sergeants Black or Tan or myself. We clear?"

"Hooah," Special Agent "Boss" Thomas Crow said, glancing around at his men who mirrored his sentiments.

"Good, let's move it out."

* * *

_El Paso, Texas_

_0721 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

More bullets hissed overhead. Stifling a curse, Specialist Barry Dunn fired his assault rifle blindly around the planter. A glancing hit to his helmet thirty minutes ago had knocked out his Cross-Com. It didn't stop him from trying, though.

The platoon had holed up in a multi-story garage in one of the mall complexes and had repelled all attempts to storm their positions thus far. But ammunition levels were going to drop straight through the basement if they kept this up. They made each shot count for the most part, maiming or killing with each press of the trigger. It really seemed like something out of a video game to see dozens of the insurgents or whatever the guys shooting at them preferred to be called. They were certainly acting like video game characters, charging straight into their guns. Dunn wasn't complaining, easier targets for him.

"Targets! Eleven o'clock! Someone get some frags out!" Corporal Adam Cobb shouted as he fired a round from his M320 grenade launcher.

"Frags out!" Sergeant Bendix shouted from a floor above them. "Heads up!"

Dunn was vaguely aware of someone dropping what might have been a half dozen grenades that flew past his position from the floor above. Either way, they left an impact on the oncoming forces. For one thing their fire slackened enough for Dunn and his squad to poke their heads up for properly-aimed shots. And aimed they were, the three floors opening up with a ragged crackling as they engaged targets.

Getting his shot lined up, Dunn tried to control his breathing. There were dozens of targets to choose from. He aligned his sights on one and squeezed the trigger. Through the low magnification of his M150 ACOG, he saw a puff of pinkish mist followed by a spray of arterial red when the round impacted, tearing through the insurgent's throat with ease. He was _definitely_ combat-ineffective.

Even before the body hit the asphalt, he had already acquired another target and stroked the trigger again. Chest shot. He saw the fighter stumble. A second shot in the upper chest dropped him. The second shot had been a tracer. Two rounds left in the magazine. He flexed his finger twice to put down another fighter before he ejected the empty magazine and loaded another one without breaking his weld. Lining up his next shot, he squeezed the trigger twice on reflex. The first shot was another tracer. The second didn't even show up, the bolt locking back. Hissing, Dunn ejected the magazine and took a look at it. Empty! How the hell had that happened?

"Weapon down!" he shouted, ducking down behind cover again.

His hands sorted through his magazines. All empty.

"I'm out of ammo!" he shouted.

"Use your damn sidearm," Cobb said through gritted teeth as he fired over and over. "I'm nearly out, too."

Dragging his holstered M9A1 out, Dunn resumed firing. Around him, more and more of the platoon were switching over to sidearms. He didn't know how long they could hold this up, but he was going to make the bastards pay for every inch.

* * *

_Laredo, Texas_

_0724 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

Broken glass crunched underneath their boots like ice. Whoever had done this was likely still around. Creeping along behind the cars, the SWAT team knew well enough to keep their heads down. Granger's main concern was whether or not their "lifesaving over lifetaking" mentality was going to be a problem. They only needed to secure one of the fighters. The others, as far as he was concerned, were open season.

"Contact, ten meters up ahead 'round the corner," Fitchner said in Granger's ear. "Pool, with a capital T."

"Hold position," Granger said, holding up a fist. "Do not engage."

He could hear the progress of the SWAT operators halt at the hand signal. They waited under the growing sun as the trouble passed. Fitchner was up ahead on the other side of the street with his support element. Glancing at him, he saw him raise his index finger and pump it up and down. Infantry with rifles. Granger waved for him to pull back. A shake. Trouble?

"Tan, Black, engage at discretion," he said. "We will be providing supporting fire."

He waved Grimes and his team forward while he maintained his spot behind the line of trucks.

"I want some wounded," he said quickly while ejecting the integral bipod of his forward grip to set it against the hood. "People with too many holes in them can't talk."

He could begin to see the telltales of an advancing crowd. It almost seemed comical to see an actual angry mob. Most Ghosts had previous unpleasant experiences with them, but many of them still found the concept to be hilarious. Yes, there was displacement. In the ambush zone. He saw the first of the mob entering the intersection.

"Engaging."

The first shot was aimed at the stragglers, likely dropping one or another. It was also enough to spook the crowd despite whatever bravado they were trying to demonstrate. That moved them forward into the long-gun element's field of fire.

Centering the targeting chevron of his sight on one of the better-dressed fighters, Granger took a quick look. He was wearing webbing, magazine pouches, and other goodies that were probably better suited for some strongman's protective detail. He'd do. The chevron dripped before he stroked the trigger. He saw the man tumble with a leg wound. Still alive. Good. Time to finish this before he bled out.

"Bagged one, finish them off."

* * *

_Fort Bliss, Texas_

_0723 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

"Get some ammo!"Sergeant Bart West shouted. "Psycho, get some ammo!"

"On it," PFC Charles Manson grunted, letting go of the SAW. "Machine gun down!"

West grabbed the M249 and steadied it against his already bruising shoulder before letting off a burst. He walked short lines into the oncoming crowd. These guys were wearing them down quickly. It wasn't a matter of casualties, which were occurring at a staggered pace of maybe one wounded man every five minutes. Nobody had been killed in the platoon yet, and he wanted it to stay that way. It was the ammunition situation.

Ordinarily their issued ammunition was more than enough to bring the fight to the enemy. But when the enemy was blindly rushing their positions, it took a hell of a lot more than six mags and a pistol. All across the line, calls were going up for more ammo more quickly. At least the M249's belts hadn't run out that quickly. With one last bag left, West cautiously squeezed the trigger again to put a burst into the corner of a technical.

It was just another oddity that they were seeing across the city. The yahoos were tooling around in pretty professionally-up-armored gun trucks, carrying a whole shitload of different heavy weapons. HK21s, M2s, and a few of the weirder Russian machine guns for the most part. Best policy on their line so far was to politely ask the Brads to put a few rounds into the pick-ups before the guys on the technicals' guns figured out how to open fire. Some SLAP rounds and a mess of 5.56 NATO took care of the little details, like the horrifically wounded stumbling out of the ruined vehicles.

Manson returned shortly from the back of their Bradley with boxes of ammunition tucked under his arms. Usually the butt of the squad's jokes about psychopathic soldiers, Charlie Manson was an extremely competent grenadier who was prone to quiet introspection and was one of more passive men when not under fire. It certainly didn't hurt that he could drop a forty-millimeter into a chimney at a hundred yards when they _were_ under fire. Sliding in behind West, he slapped his back.

"Got the ammo, Sarge!" he shouted. "Five-five-six for mags!"

One of the dubious advantages of manning a fixed position was that you didn't really need to pick up your dropped magazines. While Manson set out the clips behind each position. That was likely enough for roughly four magazines for each man. When Manson slapped his IOTV, West stepped to the side and picked up his allotment of clips. Yes indeed. Four magazines total.

"Miss me?" Manson asked, picking up and bracing the M249's stock against his shoulder. "Nice job on the tangos, Sarge. Ammo boxes are right behind you."

"Hardly," West said loudly over the gunfire, picking up one of his empty magazines and fitting the clip to its lip. "And thanks. You need some pick-ups for the SAW?"

"That'd be nice, Sarge!"

Loading the clips into the magazines wasn't hard, but it was time-consuming. With an eye on the Cross-Com, he reloaded and charged his M4. Without the help of the IWS, they would have been shooting blind into the growing dust cloud. But _with_ the IWS, each contact was helpfully marked for a center-of-mass shot through the obscuring dust.

Taking a sip from his hydration pack, West laid his reloaded magazines next to him and got back up with his M4 ready. Most of the fire on the part of the insurgents had tapered off thanks to a combination of the smoke and dust thrown up by both sides' fire as well as the sheer terrifying thought of trying to fight autocannon-armed vehicles. It certainly helped his platoon's morale. Sighting up a fighter, he stroked the trigger and saw his neck explode. Back in the game again.

* * *

_Chula Vista, California_

_0722 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

With his back resting against the counter, Sergeant Peter Stack leaned to his right and aimed his M8 out of the doorway. Three foot-mobiles charging toward the now-open-air trolley station. Then one after the rest of Team Two opened up. His rounds dropped the last one easily. It was remarkable how much good an injection of painkillers and synthetic blood could do for a wound. Not exactly flying high, he still had a bit of soreness and the pressure dressing was interfering with his aim, but he could still shoot straight and without too much pain.

The sniper who'd tagged him had been thoroughly neutralized with the help of a few forty-millimeter grenades. But he'd still been hit with a 7.62x54R steel-core slug. That had shattered his SAPI plate and provided ample explanation for why snipers were _bad_ when they were shooting at you. But the corpsman had done a bang-up job with what they had available. Now it was just a matter of holding out until support arrived.

"Contact, eleven o'clock!" PFC George Cale shouted as he fired his IAR out of the window, before stumbling back and clutching at his arm. "I'm hit! Son of a bitch! Rifle down!"

Holding out until someone remembered where they were? Easier said than done.

* * *

_El Paso, Texas_

_0739 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

Rolling through the strip mall parking lot, Staff Sergeant Cory Halverson took a moment to reflect on what others might perceive as the hubris of American consumers. The moment passed, and his M2HB tore gaping holes through the SUV that the fighters were hiding behind. Thermals showed a brief white-hot mist behind the vehicle. O.D. Bastard then rolled forward off of the now-flattened technical they had run down, brake fluid dripping off of the treads.

The crew compartment of the Abrams stank of half-burnt propellant and sweat. Even with the new air-conditioning units, the tanks tended to get real warm real quick in combat. The casings of their spent rounds were rolling around on the floor, clinking against each other and just begging to be tossed out the hatch. But there wasn't any time for that. The LT's Abrams had been mission-killed thanks to a snarl-up involving several more of those technicals and a few RPGs, leaving Halverson and his crew in charge of the platoon. They had an airport to secure even if the rest of the unit had been diverted to rescue an infantry unit out on the west side of town.

Speaking of which… "Objective is in sight," Halverson reported over the Cross-Com to Colonel Ned Dwyer. "Stalker Actual, this is Legion," he then said as he switched to the local unit general frequency. "I heard you boys needed a little fire support."

"Legion, you're a sight for sore eyes," the officer on the other side said, a Captain Oliveira. His words were interspersed with static from nearby gunfire. "Can you see the front of the airport?"

"Not visually," Halverson said, centering his main satellite feed on the airport. Looked nasty. "What do you need?"

"There's some chuckleheads with goddamn machine guns by the entrance, and we need them out of the way before we can move in! Streaming you data now!"

Halverson tapped the blinking icon to bring up shaky helmet footage of someone with a direct line of sight on the position. It looked like the insurgents had come prepared. The fortification was built out of a pair of up-armored and up-gunned pick-up trucks and a whole load of sandbags. That wouldn't be stopping anything they would be tossing. Already he had a plan brewing.

"Copy, Stalker," he said before looking down at the rest of his crew. "Bring us up close and personal. Put a round into them if we can."

"You got it," Corporal Todd Katz said from his position at the 'wheel' of the tank.

They lurched forward, until they hit the parking lot where it became that much more obvious what sort of troubles the infantry had been dealing with. The Mexicans had entrenched themselves quickly inside the main concourse of El Paso International. Muzzle flashes were visible from the emplacement to the ground floor to the roof. So many targets that he didn't know where to start.

"Stalker Actual, this is Legion," Halverson said. "What's the acceptable amount of collateral here, sir?"

"Knock on the door!" Oliveira shouted. "Anything! Just hit them!"

"Wilco, Stalker Actual," Halverson said with a raised eyebrow. He glanced over at the IWS displays. "Okay! Gunner!" he shouted over the ambient sounds of the tank. "Machine-gunner, behind the gold minivan at twelve o'clock! Range forty-seven meters! Canister!"

"Loaded!" Private Jaime Sellers shouted, stepping back from the loaded gun.

"Target acquired! Shot!" Sergeant Leon Blackwell shouted even as their main gun recoiled accompanying the thunderous report.

The overpressure of the blast blew out the windows of the cars they had maneuvered in next to. But that spray of powdered safety glass was small compared to the devastation their shot had wreaked. The M1028's thousands of tungsten ball bearings exploded outwards in a cone of maiming and destruction. Some of them went wide, pocking the façade of the airport behind the target and shattering what was supposed to be shatterproof glass. More of the ball bearings blew through some of the cars in front of them like skewers through plastic wrap, leaving an odd pattern of centimeter-wide holes in their practically Technicolor bodies as well as long craters in the relatively soft asphalt.

Comparatively, the insurgents' fighting position got off easily. Amid the sudden cacophony of car alarms, they were decimated by the equivalent of a 120mm buckshot shell. The tungsten balls punched through the double-layered sheet metal that armored the technicals as if it weren't there. But there was armor, and penetrating it changed the ball bearings' trajectories just enough to cause even further damage. On a skewed angle, the ball bearings ripped through the rest of the technicals and made a mess of the sandbag fortifications. The insurgents had the worst of it. There were roughly three to four of them manning the position. At least that was about how many pairs of arms and legs that Halverson counted when the tungsten storm hit them like a thresher. Followed by the detonation of the suddenly aerated fuel tanks in a roiling fireball, the chances of survival were slim to none. But just to make sure…

His M2's tracers stitched the still-burning wrecks, punching even more holes through the already-ruined vehicles.

"Caveira, this is O.D. Bastard. Pull in behind us. Thirty meters, you know the drill."

"Copy, O.D. Bastard," Staff Sergeant David White said. "Thirty meters on you."

One of the limitations of the Abrams had always been its sizeable blind spot. Staying buttoned-up was a necessary limitation with the tendency of fire to come in constant waves. The IWS mitigated it somewhat, but measures still needed to be taken. White's Abrams aligned itself behind O.D. Bastard, preparing to move up to keep an eye on Halverson's blind spot.

"Okay, Katz, easy forward," Halverson said. "I want short bursts, Jaime," he then said to his loader. "Move up!"

Ragged counterfire rattled against their armor, ineffective as a peashooter against a mountain. But it ensured that they stayed buttoned-up as they rolled forward. Their secondary guns lit up, turning on remote weapon station mountings to acquire new targets. And there was no lack in targets.

"Much obliged, Legion!" Oliveira called over the radio. "We could use a little help with-" His words were drowned out in sudden static.

A new voice identified as Lieutenant Michael Bills came on. "This is Stalker Five! Stalker Actual is down! Legion, you are to deploy two of your unit to flank the building while we clear it out!"

"Legion copies, Stalker Five," Halverson responded. "Redeploying forces now." Focusing on his IWS eye-in-the-sky feed, he called up the two tanks that he had been put in command of. "Caveira, Vampire, you're going to need to displace. Instructions following." He paused for a moment to get his bearings on where to send his platoon.

"Go ahead," Sergeant Oliver Haldane said from Vampire, temporarily commanding Vampire thanks to Staff Sergeant Friedrich Dyson's concussion when an RPG had impacted a little too close to his head level. "We've got some movers on the roof. We can clear them off, right?"

"Hold one," Halverson said. "Stalker, this is Legion. Are we cleared on the airport?"

"Copy that," Bills shouted. "You are cleared hot on any mobiles you see!"

"Copy, Stalker," Halverson said before returning to his platoon channel. "Okay, Vampire. You're cleared to engage. Just try not to put too many holes in the building." He tapped out new coordinates for their Cross-Coms to tag. "New positions marked on your map," he said. "Let's move it out!"

* * *

_United States-Mexican Border Airspace, New Mexico_

_0755 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

Flying high above the border, the E-10 MC2A had a healthy space between it and any MANPADS in the area. Plus there was the rotating HAVCAP of HAW-X pilots to defend the expensive C3 plane. It was a safe, if slightly tedious job being one of the hubs of the IWS as well as pulling surveillance duty on top of that. Then again, they had all signed the contracts. The E-10 itself was a testament to the increased military spending of the Ryan and Jackson administrations that had saved quite a number of programs that would have ordinarily gotten the axe.

The dusty hills beneath them were populated with sparse scrub brush and even sparser fauna no larger than the occasional bewildered rabbit. More importantly they were not populated with people. Perfect for them to keep station and sort out the Warfighter System's feed before streaming it to the actual mainframes out east. Having their surveillance gear pointed south of the border was a perk.

Actually in charge of the plane's monitoring suite, Airman Dale Ackerman tried picking out how many thermal irregularities were showing up on the FLIR read. One, two, three… He wondered how the other hubs were doing. The thermal cameras were sensitive enough to pick up the little critters below. Snakes were an anomaly, showing up as moving patches of background temperature. It wasn't particularly exciting work that he was doing personally, but it was vital for what had started as an ordinary morning.

Things would be getting hot soon and-

Ackerman's eyes widened. "Whoa! Lieutenant! C'mere!" he shouted.

Lieutenant Stephen Regis hurried over. "Something wrong, Dale?"

"That," Ackerman said, tapping a finger against the monitor.

At least three dozen vans and trucks were making for the border into the United States. Alarming in and of itself, but these vehicles were clearly sporting hastily-welded armor and were traveling in a double echelon across the hardpan. Double-plus ungood.

"How many of those-?" Regis asked, working his jaw.

"Three-zero plus, sir," Ackerman said. "What're we going to do, Lieutenant?"

"And that's terrible," Regis said quietly. "Okay, I'm going to send this over to HAWX and then see where they send this. Keep an eye on them."

"Roger that, sir," Ackerman said.

How couldn't he?

Regis returned to his station and called up Captain Tom Sarkar. "Sir, Lieutenant Regis from Bluelight-Four. We're looking at thirty-plus motorized infantry moving up on the border."

On the window showing him at Regis's station, Sarkar took a sip of coffee and grimace. "We're starting to get similar reports across the board here, Steve. Maintain course and heading. Your bodyguards are getting the same orders. Leave this to the Marines."

* * *

_El Paso, Texas_

_0736 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

Rolling in with armor was nice. They kept the bullets away, and tended to mount something nicely explosive to toss at your enemies. Several rounds skipped off the side of O.D. Bastard as the infantry advanced behind the Abrams. Stopping just short of the entrance to the airport concourse, Staff Sergeant Halverson trained his M2 on the roof of the building where satellite footage had tagged movement. With the SLAP ammo they were packing, it would only take a few dozen rounds to hit the contacts. But no, he'd have to leave that to the infantry advancing around him. Unacceptable property damage, it was called. Halverson preferred calling it surprise urban remodeling that you didn't know you wanted.

"Stalker, this is Legion," he said. "You folks need any more assistance?"

"Hold position, Legion," the infantry commander shouted. "Track any and all un-tagged movement. I'd want to see them on Warfighter!"

"Legion copies, Stalker," Halverson said with a sigh as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Holding position and marking all un-tagged contacts."

"Sarge, what the hell are we doing here? This is a _great_ place for an ambush," Corporal Katz said suddenly over the sound of O.D. Bastard's idling engine.

"We hold until the company commander sees fit to move us," Halverson said. "Come on, Todd, you know the drill."

Katz didn't say anything else as they sat in relative and extremely uneasy silence. They had buttoned up on deployment mostly owing to how many bullets the insurgents were tossing their way. Their new armored electronic periscope helped things a hell of a lot with that sort of situation, the designers of the A2 TUSK upgrade having learned from the Russians' mistakes in Chechnya. Getting buttoned-up involuntarily was still one of the tank crews' greatest fears next to someone tossing an incendiary or somehow bringing a Javelin into play. They needed to keep an eye out or things were liable to get sticky with shit situational awareness.

They watched as the blue diamonds indicating friendly forces streamed into the building around them, weapons firing. The radio was alive with their chatter.

"Contact right! Contact right!" someone was shouting, his voice cracking.

"Movement! Jesus! I'm hit!"

"-get that three-twenty up! Over there!"

"We got movement up here!"

"Go, go, go! Movement on the balcony!"

"Room cleared! Coming out!"

And so it went on for minutes, the muted muzzle flashes of the infantry meeting the insurgents head-on visible through the panes of tinted glass of the façade that still remained. Halverson could imagine what they were going through. They needed to thoroughly sweep the airport and drive out the fighters for good. Not a single insurgent could remain.

Tapping into the Cross-Com cameras, Halverson watched through the soldiers' shaky helmet cameras as they moved through the building. While the units that split off the clear the administrative areas had a more convoluted job, the squads clearing the atrium looked like they had fallen straight into hell. Dozens of flashes were marked on the Cross-Com, pointing out enemy positions. And it wasn't just the muzzle flashes. The tracers that accompanied the muzzle flashes slashed up the atrium and hit soldiers caught in the open.

"Stalker, this is Legion," Halverson said again, calling up the provisional commander of the forces. "Are you sure you don't need assistance?"

"Legion, stay off the line!" the lieutenant shouted. "Orders are to minimize collateral damage!"

Halverson sighed. "Legion copies. Out." He looked down at the rest of his crew. "Pull us back. I don't feel like-" He paused for a second as he looked at the rear-view camera feed. "Okay, yeah. I want a dozen meters between us and the door. Some asshole just tried to Molotov us. Juice 'em."

* * *

_National Military Command Center, Washington DC_

_0800 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

"Lieutenant, I need you to designate the target," Major Clancy said evenly into his headset as he pulled up comms for one of the artillery units ranged out for downtown El Paso. "I've got artillery on the line, and they need to know where to aim."

Clancy had seen the demos of the updated IWS software. In order to call in a fire mission, the soldier only needed to get eyes on the target. The IWS would then take care of the rest, utilizing a combination of shape-recognition software and feeds from satellites and other assets in the area to identify the target for everyone else using the IWS, including the artillerymen. But they needed to get eyes on it. Otherwise it was going to be a crapshoot using only eye-in-the-sky telemetry to guide the artillery.

There was a flurry of activity the next station cluster over from his own that drew his attention. They were part of the New Mexico cluster, and it sounded like the officers manning the stations were in the midst of mobilizing some sort of response for an armored incursion.

_Armor?_ _What the hell is going on?

* * *

_

_Laredo, Texas_

_0807 Hours_

_1 July 2014_

"State your name clearly," Granger said in Spanish, leaning forward with the digital camera to take in the figure strapped to the chair.

Their capture looked more and more like the jackpot. He was carrying enough Chicks Dig It gear to choke a SEAL, and he looked pretty well groomed for an insurgent. Not that you could really tell now. After flex-cuffing the guy and three others, Charlie Team had set up shop in an abandoned McDonalds for a little chat with him. They had gotten a good rifle-through of his possessions. An imitation Rolex, a billfold with a driver's license, and a big drug cocktail bottle of amphetamines and probably Luminal. His clothes underneath his CDI shit were upper middle class. At least they had been. Now they were mostly bloody.

There was really no safe way of incapacitating someone with a gunshot. When you were shooting someone, the general idea of it was to kill the fucker. But there were places that bled out slower and made running away that much harder. A kneecap with part of its bone scattered on a Laredo street was one of them. It had taken a minute to stabilize and then patch up the wound, _sans_ painkiller, and the fighter's clothes showed it with now-drying blotches of brown and red all over.

And yet he still didn't say a word.

He had to hand it to the guy, actually all of their captures. None of them said a word so far. Either too scared or too devoted to the cause, whatever it might have been.

"Ghost, Baseplate," his earpiece suddenly crackled, one of the commo guys.

"This is Ghost Lead, Baseplate," he said, straightening up. "Go ahead."

"Ghost Lead, the chair is against the door," General Keating's voice said. "You have the go-ahead."

"Understood, Baseplate," Granger said. "The chair is against the door."

He gave a thumbs-up to Grimes and Fitchner. The gloves just came off. Ordinarily there were rules and regulations regarding the treatment and interrogation of prisoners. There were whole commissions and non-governmental groups intended to monitor these things. What Charlie Team had just received were orders from the top of the top. Thorough interrogation and torture had a fine line dividing them. Their new orders gave them permission to cross that line.

First Grimes went out of their nicely secured storeroom to retrieve one of the foot soldiers that they had captured as well. There were many ways to go about extracting information, but Charlie had always preferred this way.

Previous administrations such as the first Ryan administration up to and including the Ballantine administration had always danced around the topic of violent interrogation. "Enhanced interrogation" it was called by some, "torture" by others. Some of the crazies called it "righteous use of force against enemy combatants." The Ghosts liked calling it "ongoing psychological operations and mutilation to extract information." It explained everything that they were going to do in transparent terms.

The fighter Grimes brought back sported a shattered femur with unextracted bullet fragments buried deep in his groin. He'd do.

Fitchner dragged a second chair over, and quickly had the new guy strapped securely to it before leaving the room for the moment.

"What is your name? Why are you here?" Granger asked. "Either of you?"

Neither responded, the CDI guy somehow glaring daggers at both Granger and his own subordinate. Granger frowned, setting the camera on the shelf and picking up a box of plastic bags. Tearing it open, he pulled out one of the bags and nodded to Grimes. Grimes pulled the CDI guy back against his seat to restrain him. Before the man could even protest, Granger had pulled the plastic bag over his head and let Grimes take over tightening his grip.

He could just make out the features of the man through the nearly-opaque bag. The CDI guy looked panicked as fuck if the sudden expansion and collapse of the bag around his mouth was any indication. Grimes had a knack for this trick.

Granger watched as he twisted the bag around his fist, tightening it against CDI's throat. He could hear him beginning to whimper now. One of the wonderful things of using the bag was that the victim could still vaguely see through the plastic as they were slowly strangled. The whimper grew in pitch into a muffled shrieking before being joined shortly by the distinct scent of piss.

The man thrashed against his bonds as if he could somehow escape. His comrade looked on, eyes wide. He had heard of the Americans' practice of waterboarding back home. But what was this? He'd never heard about anything like this from the Mexican government either. Granger let it go on until he saw the bag beginning to puff less and less much like his struggling. At his nod, Grimes released his grip on the bag. As Granger removed the bag from CDI's now limp head, he noted that the inside of the bag was dripping with sweat and saliva. Good to see it was having an effect.

"What is your name? Why are you here?" Granger asked again, his voice and demeanor calm. "If you can tell me that, I won't do that again."

CDI was panting for breath. Charlie had picked up the trick from some time spent in Brazil. Of course the Skulls liked using clear plastic bags, but the idea was the same. Blinding fear and panic. Nothing quite like it to loosen lips. All of the Ghosts had undergone it during SERE refresher and knew how effective it was. Adding blunt trauma made it that much more persuasive.

Blunt trauma like Granger bringing the stock of his M416 about to open a gash on CDI's temple. If he was feeling groggy before, he was probably wide awake now. But pain was a double-edged blade. Unless you applied enough of it, that is. He pulled his Leatherman out and waved it in front of CDI's bloodied face.

"You know what this is?" he asked in Spanish. "It's a multitool. Everything someone could use for handiwork around the house. But that's not all." He unfolded the short blade. "You could use this for whittling. But I keep this one extra-sharp. Do you know why?"

CDI looked at him, wide-eyed in fear and panic. Not a word, though.

"If you don't answer, I'm going to remove _his_," he pointed at CDI's buddy, "eyelids. And if you still don't answer, I'm going to scoop each one out one by one. For each question you don't answer, I'll take something from him."

At that, his buddy turned to looked at him. Nothing quite like an incentive to loosen lips either. And yet not a word from CDI. Pretty resilient for a middle-class revolutionary. Or it simply meant he was too devoted to whatever cause he was fighting for to say anything. Fair enough.

"Gag him," Granger said as he went to adjust the camera.

Grimes had twisted up a rag in preparation and simple forced it between the guy's teeth and pulling back to tie it securely. He couldn't do anything aside from screaming incoherently now.

"What is your name?" Granger asked. "Why are you here?"

Nothing.

"Okay," Granger said with a sigh. "Hold him."

The other guy's eyes were as wide as dinner plates now. Perfect. As Grimes held his head in place, Granger brought his blade up to begin the first incision at the tear duct. The razor-sharp blade drew bright red blood as he slid the blade from its starting point to the left toward the bridge of the nose. He could feel the man shaking, barely being immobilized by the Staff Sergeant as he made the cut. With a half-inch incision just deep enough to ensure a clean cut through the skin, he then turned his attention to the other side of the eye, opening it up towards the ear as well. The trembling made his work slow as he tried to minimize the amount of trauma, ironic as it was.

With that out of the way, he ran the blade along both the upper and lower portions of the eyelid where they came in contact with the socket edges. There was more blood as he cut. He could barely hear anything over the shrieking, muffled as it was. Finishing up quickly, he used the pliers of his Leatherman to peel the eyelids away like an onion to reveal the glistening eye beneath. Not even a nick. Granger wasn't sure whether or not to be proud. He displayed the two bloodied flaps of skin to CDI.

"What is your name?" he asked again. "Why are you here?"

Silence. He went back to work. The guy's other set of eyelids came off easier, possibly because he was already entering shock. Granger didn't particularly care, he had a job to do.

"What is your name? Why are you here?"

* * *

-

* * *

Author's Notes: Yes, things just took a turn for the darker. Torture and a violent interrogation have many things in common, but most importantly both are brutish and highly unpleasant for both parties. The same goes for war. Despite all of the materiel and tech showcased, the task of combat inevitably falls on the individual soldier to accomplish. I'm not anti-war, but you'd damn well better come up with a good reason to go to war.


End file.
